Jim D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and congratulate him on bringing in this Bill. I pay tribute to the old VECs for the enormous contribution they have made to education over the years. The Bill is well structured with discreet functions between the board and the executive. I am glad to see that the board will have some powers of representation. I am also pleased that the minimum political representation from each county will be three. We discussed that matter before and it gives the proper representation to each county in the circumstances of amalgamations.

I attended the Young Scientists exhibition in the RDS recently. I was so impressed by the range and quality of the projects on display that I decided, in conjunction with Dundalk Institute of Technology's teachers and students, to put the 27 projects on display at the institute this week. At the launch, the keynote speaker, Ms Louise Phelan, stated that the 67 young people involved would take us to places we never dreamed of. This is the attitude we need to adopt, rather than one of doom and gloom.

The training and education they receive during and after their student years will be crucial. At the same event, Mr. Pádraig Kieran, the president of Drogheda Chamber of Commerce, remarked that these young people are not just training for jobs, but also to be young entrepreneurs and innovators.

Will teaching staff within the further education system and SOLAS, when it is established, have the skills to educate and train people to the high standards required, particularly in ICT and foreign language skills? In the new system, courses must fit the trainees and not the opposite, as may have been the case sometimes in the past.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Brian Mooney wrote a fantastic article for The Irish Times on the new boards. It should be pinned up in every new boardroom and college of further education. Mr. Mooney posed a number of questions, including whether the new SOLAS can make a difference, linked in with these new education and training boards.

I want to be a bit parochial, not for political reasons but because in life, as in literature, the local can become the universal. Louth, the smallest county in Ireland, has the two largest provincial towns, Dundalk and Drogheda. I hope that at an early stage, we will see Louth used as an exemplar or pilot for an accelerated programme of education and training under the new education and training boards, particularly for engineering, ICT and language skills.

At the end of the day, foreign direct investment is fantastic. The 700 such companies we have here are very welcome, but it is the genius of our own people that will make the crucial difference. We must not let them down. Senator Power said the further education system was traditionally the Cinderella of the sector. It is time that we dressed up Cinderella for the ball. The leadership of the new education boards is one of the most crucial matters for the future. This is one of the most important Bills to go through the Oireachtas in this Government's term.

The students in the Visitors' Gallery are our future. They are our gold, silver and uranium together, and more valuable than those precious metals. The new education and training boards will educate and train them up to levels which have never been seen before in this country. This does not just concern students but also people in employment and those who are unemployed. We want to see people undertaking programmes such as Intreo and the Pathways to Work. Further education colleges and SOLAS will get them trained. People are not going into jobs anymore, they are embarking on careers and must keep training all the time. We must lead that initiative.

We must also sweat our assets. Further education colleges, institutes of technology and universities are closed for three months every year, as well as being closed at weekends. We must re-open them to realise the investment of ¤500 million in every institute of technology. They are lying idle in the summer, so they should be opened up for accelerated training and learning programmes.

At the jobs fair in Dundalk, two weeks ago, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton spoke very well. Senator Moran may have been part of organising that. One of the messages that emerged was that jobs requiring language skills were on offer, but there was no one there to fill them. PayPal is providing 1,200 jobs there, so we need the second generation to be local so that we can sustain those positions and keep the local economy buoyant.

I am being a little critical of FÁS but it is incredible to think that more than ¤1 billion per year was spent on education and, in particular, on training at a time of full employment with nothing to show for it in terms of the structural deficit. The structural deficit was loudly debated at the time of the stability treaty but we had nothing to show for it.

I very much welcome this Bill and am very excited by it. The Minister is the right man to bring it through the Houses and to ensure it bears fruit for education and training in the years to come.