Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 59: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on the evidence from benchmarking Ireland's performance that Ireland has dropped three places relative to the EU-15 in terms of life-long learning for 25 to 64 year olds. [15613/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The broader responsibility for the promotion of life long learning lies with the Department of Education and Science. My own Department is primarily concerned with the job of enhancing the skills of workers to ensure a more effective labour market and to sustain and enlarge a competitive and productive national economy. In cooperation with the Department of Education and Science we are now preparing a joint report for the European Commission that will detail our respective contributions to the advancement of life long learning and the wide range of approaches that are being deployed at national, regional and local levels to facilitate access to learning at every stage of life. This is an area that has attracted special attention in the national agreement with the social partners – Towards 2016. The recently published National Skills Strategy sets out clear long-term objectives in developing Ireland's human capital through upskilling, training and education for the period to 2020. The Strategy will be essential in ensuring that Ireland's education and training systems are able to meet the future demands of industry in the medium to longer term. One of the key recommendations of the National Skills Strategy is the need to raise the educational and skills levels of 500,000 people in employment. The upskilling of 500,000 individuals within the workforce leading to awards on the National Framework of Qualifications is a significant challenge, which will require new and innovative delivery models. It will require convincing both employers and employees of the need to and value of upskilling in a knowledge economy. The Government, employers and individuals will have to work together if we are to achieve this objective.