Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on whether it a good use of money to provide funding to further education institutions, such as FÁS, who employ private contractors to carry out training courses in view of the fact that the private contractors make huge profits; if he will consider re-investing the funds into further education institutions which reinvest the money into their own development; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16459/13]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of privately contracted training is to:

- Provide for training where mainstream provision is geographically inaccessible;

- Arrange provision where the skills set is not available in mainstream provision;

- To arrange all year round provision (outside of traditional academic starts).

The FÁS tendering process, for example, involves a pre-qualification stage which is open to Public, Private and Not for Profit providers. There is a second stage tendering process which involves the assessment of actual tenders against a pre-determined marking system.

In order to win contracts the fees element of the tendering process must be competitive for all providers (Public, Private and Not for Profit). Private providers have to include in their tender their business and investment costs, staff, overheads, developing their staff, development of curriculum and delivery material, facilities, transport, tutor expenses (T&S). The FÁS Contracted Training Tender List has providers from all 3 types, (Public, Private and Not for Profit) and all 3 types of providers succeed in winning tenders.

I am not aware of any evidence that contracted trainers are making huge profits, because the market is regulating the value of the contracts in question. This regulation also includes public providers, who are either competitive in these open competitions or are not.