Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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492. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the opportunities for jobs and training and economic benefit that will develop from the recently signed agreement between the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union of Ireland and the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices in the United States of America; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5925/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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On 27 January Ireland’s largest craft union, the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) signed a federation agreement with the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices (UA), which represents 370,000 craft workers in the United States, Canada and Australia. The signing ceremony was hosted at the Embassy of Ireland in Washington DC by Irish Ambassador Anne Anderson and took place in the presence of US Secretary of Labour, Thomas Perez and Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO.

The federation promises to deliver considerable benefits, especially in terms of expanding training and future employment opportunities for the members of both unions. Explaining the context of the agreement, Eamon Devoy, General Secretary of the TEEU, has pointed to the imperative that engineering workers are suitably trained and retrained to meet the demands of change based technologies that are crucial to the needs of successful business.

He has also highlighted the TEEU’s focus on training, quality and standards and noted that the association with the UA will be important to developing the training aspect of their activities. Under the agreement, the TEEU will bring US trainers to Ireland to teach workers new skills under a “train the trainers” programme. William Hite of the UA has also stressed the need for skills development in order to compete for high skilled jobs in a global economy and committed the UA to sharing their knowledge.

I welcome the signing of this agreement and commend the role of our Embassy in Washington in facilitating it. In an increasingly globalised world and in an open economy such as Ireland’s it is essential that we constantly look to enhance and improve our skills so that training opportunities arising, as the economy starts to grow again, can be availed of. While the future development of this agreement is for the two unions concerned, I hope and expect that it will contribute to such improved training opportunities and wish the two organisations every success with its implementation and development.