Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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The Adult Literacy for Life, or ALL, Strategy sets out a cross-government, cross-economy, cross-society approach to address this priority. It sets out the detailed pathway to achieve the vision of an Ireland where every adult has the necessary literacy, numeracy and digital literacy to engage in society and realise their potential.

I believe that the Strategy can be transformative in addressing a very significant root cause of broader socio-economic disadvantage in our society and can make a substantial contribution to fostering inclusion and full participation in society.

I wish to advise the Deputy that a number of commitments under the Strategy have already been delivered including the establishment of a one-stop-shop which provides over 210 local contacts point and access to a national freephone for anyone who wishes to avail of one of the 100,000 places currently available through Further Education and Training (FET) providers across the country. Within FET, there are focused courses on building digital skills, as well as those that embed digital capability as part of wider provision. There are also eTutor supported online courses via eCollege that have been made openly and widely accessible during the pandemic.

Within the monitoring and reporting framework under the Strategy, barriers to engagement and digital skills indicators feature prominently and the progress towards one of the Strategy’s stated targets of ensuring that 80% of adults have at least basic digital skills will be monitored closely to ensure it is realised.

The Strategy includes a set of priority actions for delivery in the initial implementation phase, during which the foundations for success over the next 10 years will be laid. The recent announcement in Budget 2022 made provision of €3 million for this work, which underpins the ambition to progress and achieve these important early milestones.