Colm Burke (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This issue relates to the European Globalisation Fund, EGF, and the need to ensure we draw down all the funds available to us. Some €35.7 million was to be made available to us under this fund and I understand that the companies and the names of the people entitled to draw these funds were submitted with the applications over the past 12 months but that the take-up of the fund has not been as expected. It is important we avail of this opportunity to provide retraining for people who have been involved in the construction industry and who are now unemployed as a result of the downturn.

A number of issues arise, first of which is the reason for the slow take-up of the fund. I understand that more than 8,700 letters were sent in December but fewer than 1,000 responses were received. I was informed there were only 452 responses to the 8,779 letters. Why were these letters sent out so late when, as I understand, we have only a five-month period in which to draw down this funding? What type of retraining was offered in those letters?

I raise this matter because one of our national newspapers last weekend raised an issue concerning VEC courses. Over that weekend a number of employers contacted me and advised me that they would not take on people who had done a particular VEC course because the course was so outdated and the training the person would receive would not provide the skills necessary for the job available. While we are talking about upskilling people who have lost jobs, we should also take a look at upskilling or updating the training courses. If there is such a low take-up of retraining, this raises serious questions as to what is on offer. I am aware we must provide funding from the Exchequer for this training, but we have a significant opportunity to access this EGF funding and should avail of it.

In 2009 when the Dell closure was announced, I was involved then in approaching the European Commissioner and seeking amendments to the rules in order that we could accommodate the Dell workers to qualify for retraining grants. The Department and its officials have done a lot of work in achieving further amendments to accommodate the people who have lost their jobs in the construction industry.

We appear to be in a situation where we may not be able to draw down a huge proportion of this funding, anything up to €20 million, as I understand it. Will the Minister of State clarify the current situation and set out exactly what we propose to do in the next two months to improve the situation in order to maximise the drawdown? Is it worth taking on a major advertising programme to encourage people to enter the training process? I ask that this be clarified.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Colm Burke for raising this matter. In June 2010 the Department submitted an application to the EU for European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, EGF, co-financed assistance for almost 9,000 redundant construction workers. The workers were made redundant between 1 July 2009 and 31 March 2010 and were individually identified as is required to meet the conditions of the fund. This was done through either official data held on redundancy payments or from FÁS apprenticeship records. The EU subsequently required this application to be divided into three separate applications covering specific industry sub-sectors. This exercise, which involved a huge and complex exercise in data collation across a number of external bodies such as the Central Statistics Office and FÁS, resulted in the submission of three revised applications in February 2011.

As the Senator knows, the EGF approval process is a lengthy one involving the EU budgetary authorities at Commission, Council and Parliament levels. This resulted in the Irish applications not being finally approved until November 2011. This left only six months for the completion of the EGF programme. As I pointed out to Commissioner László Andor when he visited Ireland recently, a feature of the EGF process that is often criticised by member states is that the finite implementation period of 24 months commences upon submission of the application rather than upon its subsequent approval, when the member state finally can be assured that the EU money will be made available.

This was a significant factor in these construction cases where very large amounts of money were at stake that would have otherwise fallen to the Irish Exchequer to cover had it ultimately been decided that the EU money would not be made available. However, it is important to stress that Irish interventions have been taking place in support of EGF-eligible construction workers as far back as the first redundancies in July 2009. Until the receipt of EU funding last December, these measures were funded exclusively through national resources.

Since taking office, I have ensured that preparations to implement supports for these workers were accelerated and supports were ready to be provided as soon as possible after the EU decision was made. My Department chaired an interdepartmental and agency steering group to speed up this process and put in place a dedicated EGF construction contact centre and technical support group to facilitate the redundant workers in accessing supports. This dedicated contact centre is based in Limerick and mostly comprises staff who were involved in the delivery of the EGF programme for Dell workers. Measures will continue to be delivered right up until the closure of the three EGF programmes on 9 June 2012. These measures include career guidance, further education and training courses, apprenticeship progression, third level education programmes and enterprise supports.

EGF funds of €35.7 million were received by the Government on 29 December 2011. My Department estimates that over €20 million worth of nationally funded EGF interventions have already been provided for the commencement of at least 4,500 interventions in the areas of guidance, training, apprenticeship progression and third level courses. Following the EU approval, letters of notification of a number of additional EGF services issued to 8,779 redundant construction workers on 19 December 2011. These new services included tailored VEC career planning courses and EGF training grants, enabling the widest choice of non-State funded training and education opportunities to be availed of by the redundant workers, thus giving the workers a huge degree of autonomy in using dedicated training grants to access training that they deemed necessary for their own careers advancement.

Since this notification and up until 27 January 2012, the latest available data indicates, as Senator Burke pointed out, that an additional 452 eligible individuals accessed the services of the new EGF construction contact centre, which provides telephone and online information and supports access to professional career and occupational guidance. A dedicated EGF website, egf.ie, also went live in December and provides further information on the EGF construction programmes as well as an online application process for the EGF training grant scheme. By 27 January, it is estimated that some 275 persons had accessed or were in the process of accessing these new interventions. The Irish authorities continue to encourage eligible redundant construction workers to avail of the wide array of EGF-related services available to them.

It is important to point out the aim is not to simply maximise EU co-financing but to provide appropriate and tailored interventions to this cohort of redundant workers so as to maximise their re-employability. I also want to point out that, since I assumed this ministry, I have initiated a review of our previous EGF applications across the Dell group, the SR Technics group and the Waterford Crystal group to find where we succeeded and, in areas where we certainly did not succeed, how we can best benefit from this EGF programme. That review will be concluded shortly and we will use the information gleaned from it, and also from communicating with worker representatives across those three entities and trying to extract from them their experiences, both positive and negative, of how the funds have in the past been administered, to guide us in making future applications. It is important to note that the first application under this Government will be for the TalkTalk workers in Waterford. I hope the standard of that application and the level of research carried out before lodging the application will be such that it will make the guidance and training delivered much more meaningful and helpful for those seeking to access it.

Senator Burke also noted there was a need across the further education and training sectors to upskill or update the training courses we provide. I concur wholeheartedly with that opinion. That is exactly what we are setting out to do with Solas, which will ensure the training we are providing is up to the minute, responds to the needs of learners and trainees and also, perhaps more importantly, responds to the needs of the labour market and to industry in general. We are and will be carrying out extensive research both nationally and at regional level as to where job opportunities and labour market shortages will arise. We will be re-orienting and training and further education opportunities so they can respond in a meaningful manner to those labour market shortages and to the needs of the learners accessing both training and further education opportunities.

Colm Burke (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. As I understand it, he is suggesting that people can go outside the State-funded training organisations, such as the VEC, for courses, which I very much welcome. In regard to the application that was made for the €37.5 million, what is the total number of those who have completed training or are in training? What is the likely level of funding we will have to refund and does this take into account the current figures? The other issue I raised concerned whether there is a need for further highlighting of the programme in order that the maximum number of people can get on board.

The programme is related to people who were employed in companies. What about the self-employed who no longer have work, such as sub-contractors? Can they come under the programme?

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The answer to the Senator last question is that, no, unfortunately, they cannot. The application was made for a very specific cohort of workers who were made redundant from a company and had a redundancy notice applied to them. We could not have made an application on their behalf if we did not have that redundancy notice.

Anybody who was previously involved in the construction sector continues to have the opportunity to access what are generally excellent upskilling and training programmes. This will allow them to take their existing skills and reorient them somewhat in order to avail of opportunities arising in such areas as green energy, wind energy, the retrofitting of houses to make them more environmentally sustainable and so on. Any former construction workers, irrespective of whether they are out of work for some time or have only recently been made redundant, can access these training programmes.

We will not have the final figures for the numbers of interventions until we submit the final accounts for the scheme to the Commission, probably at the end of June. In respect of any employee who was made redundant from this cohort of 9,000 people, we can claim back 65% of the cost of any intervention we provided for them in the past two years, since 2009. This is because they are deemed to be applicants in the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund process. Any interventions we provided for them can be funded from the €35.7 million allocation. The Department estimates that some €20 million of this spend has already been allocated across this cohort.

One of the greatest challenges facing apprentices made redundant from the construction sector in the past two years is that many of them had not achieved their final qualification. Some were four fifths or five sixths of the way along the process, others even less. We have allocated considerable resources to engaging with them in order to give them the opportunity to complete their apprenticeships and attain a formal qualification. This will allow them to further their career in the State or perhaps seek work abroad. We will not know the final figures for the numbers of interventions or the amount we have spent until the final accounts and administration work are completed in the summer.