Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Sligo Institute of Technology is having its innovation and enterprise week. I am pleased that tomorrow evening I will host an event for parents, one could call it career guidance for parents, specifically concentrating on the STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This is an area of huge growth. The US council on science has recommended to President Obama that it needs at least 1 million graduates in the next decade to fill the jobs that are becoming available. In Ireland we will need top grade graduates in these areas. It is welcome that Dublin City University recently reported a large increase in the number of applicants for these areas this year and last year as there had been a fall-off in previous years.

I am trying to give parents more information about the jobs that are becoming available in order that they can encourage their children to take up STEM subjects. In this regard I ask the Leader to invite the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Sherlock, who endorses the event I am hosting, to the House for a discussion on how we can support the advancement of STEM subjects. Science Foundation Ireland is doing a good job through its smart futures project. It can take some credit for the increased number of applications in third level institutions this year. The Minister of State has been in the House on a previous occasion but I would like him to give an update on this area and how we can find new ways to relate to second level students, their teachers and career guidance teachers and find other ways to encourage and support children who may have an interest in this area but are not sure where the jobs are. Perhaps the Minister of State would share some of his ideas with us and how we might reach out to the US, which has some innovative programmes. Intel runs a programme specifically for young women and young girls to encourage them and, perhaps, we could have an interesting debate on that area.