John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 120: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views of the assessment by Forfás (details supplied); his plans to improve funding in this area; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17879/06]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy is referring to a report entitled Data Analysis of In-Employment Education and Training in Ireland that was published by Forfás in 2005. At the time this report was in preparation, the latest full year for which the full range of data was available was 2003. At that time this Department was contributing less than €14m in direct training grants to activities classified in this report as Continuing Vocational Education and Training. These funds were invested by FÁS and Skillnets Limited to upskill those in work. Since then, the Deputy will be pleased to learn that my Department's allocations to this activity have benefited from a nearly four-fold increase to over €52 million in 2006. The 2006 allocations are being invested by FÁS in its expanded Competency Development Programme (€35.6m), by Skillnets Limited in the Training Networks Programme (€8.5m) and by Enterprise Ireland and a subsidiary of Skillnets (€2m and €6m approximately) both of whom are managing in-company training programmes on behalf of my Department.