Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s skills development policy is framed by Ireland’s National Skills Strategy 2025, which was published in 2016. This ushered in significant reforms in the education and training sector, resulting in a responsive National Skills Architecture, which aims to ensure that education and training provision is optimally aligned with identified skills needs within the enterprise base. This Strategy has recently been reviewed by the OECD, the recommendations from which will inform the development of a new National Skills Strategy, upon the expiration of the current strategy in 2025.

Ireland’s skills architecture is overseen by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The architecture draws on the labour market intelligence of the Skills and Labour Market Research Unit of SOLAS and the enterprise skills demand forecast studies of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, the Secretariat for which is based in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. This research informs the work of the National Skills Council. The Council is comprised of the chief skills policy stakeholders from across the public and private sectors and advises on the allocation of resources to address identified and emerging skills needs, while also working to maximise the responses to these needs by education and training providers.

The work of the Council is also informed by the activities of the network of nine Regional Skills Fora, which work to address the skills needs of regional enterprise by enhancing linkages and engagement between local education and training providers and employers, and by helping employers better understand and access the full range of services available across the education and training system. In particular, the Fora have facilitated the roll out of the Skills for Growth skills audit tools for regional enterprise, and its Enterprise Ireland strand, Spotlight on Skills workshops, a partnership with the Irish Management Institute, which have supported employers in understanding and planning for the skills needs of their enterprises.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government committed to promoting higher female labour market participation, as well as less commuting and greater regional balance, through increased remote, flexible and hub-working arrangements to support families in their parenting and childcare choices.

According to the latest available data from the Central Statistics Office’s Labour Force Survey, female labour force participation is at a record high. In Q3 2023, the female participation rate stood at 60.9 percent, a more than 10 percentage point increase on the pandemic driven low of 50.1 percent in Q2 2020, and a 4.5 percentage point increase over the pre-pandemic rate in late 2019.

The female participation rate has grown significantly more than the male rate since Q4 2019, just prior to the pandemic, closing the gender gap in the workforce. The male participation rate has increased by 1.7 percentage points during this time, to 70.6 percent.

The number of women in employment is now 183,200 higher than in Q4 2019, compared with growth in male employment of 121,700. The total number of women in the labour force is now over 1.3 million, of which 1.26 million are in employment, with women representing 47.1 percent of the labour force.

As well as continued funding increases for early learning and childcare, the period since publication of the Programme for Government has encompassed the launch and implementation of Making Remote Work, Ireland’s National Remote Work strategy, which aims to ensure that remote work is a permanent feature in the Irish workplace, in a way that maximises economic, social and environmental benefits.

The strategy is setting out to create a conducive environment for remote working, developing and leveraging a remote work infrastructure, and building a remote work policy and guidance framework. The strategy is a key instrument for government in addressing obstacles to labour market inclusion, and female participation in particular, due to the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work undertaken by women. It is enabling improved access to the workplace through greater flexibility in terms of time management, childcare and commuting options.

The Government’s labour market activation strategy Pathways to Work 2021-2025 is also working to support greater female labour market participation. Its commitments include development and implementation of a new ‘Returners’ programme, to help integrate those who left or have been outside the workforce for some time, increasing the number of children in receipt of State supports for Early Learning and Care and School Age Funding Programmes, and ensuring that the particular circumstances of lone parents are considered in the assessment of a Working Age Payment.

Through continued implementation of these strategies, as well as the broader commitment to ensuring a resilient labour market and sound enterprise environment for job creation set out in the White Paper on Enterprise, the Government aims to build on this momentum in female labour market participation, and close the gender participation gap even further.