This will be the biggest embarrassment of all to this Government when they go to the people.
As far as I am concerned, this little organisation, with a small staff and a small revenue, cannot hope to compete with the other enormous agencies by way of staff and by way of expenditure of moneys available to it. CERT's reputation goes further than that, which I have just mentioned. It was always a highly effective organisation in the way it runs its business, it has always used the resources available for training as provided by the vocational education committees. It is the only organisation here that has utilised that basic source of training in the vocational schools, or the technical schools as they were known in the past. It has used the seasonal hotels for training purposes. How many seasonal hotels, open for only six to eight weeks — the shortest season in the world — could survice without those CERT training courses operating in their premises during the lean winter months.
CERT was always conscious of that. It was not just training for the service; it was utilising the existing hotel structure in the leaner times of the year. CERT has never duplicated the work of the other agencies. That cannot be said about the other three agencies that we are talking about dismantling here. CERT has confined its business strictly to the tourism product, strictly to the catering and hotel industries, and has never got embroiled in arguments of policy or the distribution of money as far as the other agencies are concerned. It confines itself strictly to the catering and hotel industry and has never become embroiled in arguing the policy of distribution of money in so far as the other agencies are concerned. In a word, they mind their own business. They also enjoy a considerable reputation as a means of entry to the catering and tourism industry. I put it to the Minister that the name CERT is synonymous with training for tourism and they cannot maintain their individuality if they are merged at this time. The thrust of this legislation is to snuff out their individuality and to bring them under the umbrella of the much larger operators in training.
CERT has an enviable record in the placement of trainees. No other organisation can put forward the case for recognition in that that CERT can, and if we are to use the yardstick of "What can you show for the record?" as the means for giving support, then CERT have proved beyond yea or nay that this record stands up to scrutiny. I am not so sure that all elements of the other agencies could stand the same heat of the same kitchen. CERT's reputation can be put to the test, analysised and scrutinised.
A critical appraisal of how CERT are doing is given by both their employers and employees: the employers who work in the tourism industry, all the 80,000 employees who operate there and all the other agencies involved all have a magnificant relationship with the management, the unions and the staff of CERT. All these other agencies have not been kept at arms length by CERT; they have been invited to contribute to the development of CERT's policies, training procedures and curricula. They have also been asked to participate in the recruitment and placement structures. We do not hear of too many other agencies inviting in outsiders to help out in developing their policy structure, but so strong are CERT on delivering the goods to the tourism industry that they invite all the agencies and all those who wish to contribute to participate in their policy development.
CERT have an international reputation. They are internationally known in the hotel world associations. The training organisations overseas and the hotel schools around Europe and America recognise CERT as the one organisation on whom they can rely to give them suitably trained people for further training. International placement agencies worldwide recognise the training and level of education provided by CERT. There is tremendous co-operation between the Department of Education, the VECs and CERT. They have established a national curriculum and certification board with the Department of Education, the VECs and the whole industry involved. They are producing trainees who meet the needs of modern industry and, thank goodness, they are moving away at last, and are probably the first agency of any kind to move away, from the old UK curricula which are now out of date and not suited to the needs of a purely Irish tourist industry.
If we are to develop our individuality, to be able to say to tourists worldwide: "Come to Ireland. We have something unique and special to show you and something for you to do, not just nice scenery, not just an unspoiled, unpolluted environment, not just the Irish welcome, but standards being put in place", the people we can rely on to create that international reputation for us must surely be the management, training and manpower agency who service the industry. We would be much better advised to strengthen CERT, to give them a wider brief and then, as the Minister said in March, they might serve as the model for all the other training and placement agencies operating in the economy.
There is no doubt that great importance attaches to specialist training for tourism. We are dealing with a sophisticated industry and a sophisticated international clientele who demand more, and the reason they demand more is that they have the choice. There was a time when people thought that they would come to Ireland anyway, Ireland of the welcomes and the beautiful scenery. But, with the greater mobility of peoples around the world now and the greater amount of disposable income available to a wider range of peoples, they have the choice and we must create the environment that makes it necessary for them to choose Ireland. The only way we can do that is by retaining our Irishness, by giving importance to standards and having the right tourism product at the right price. Value for money is what it is all about in worldwide tourism now, and CERT are living up to the demands placed upon them in creating that environment for us; yet this Government and this Minister would seek to dismantle them.
Let us take a look at the new Authority the Minister wants to develop. That Authority must be dominated by the requirements of the other industries. I am not stating that these other industries are any more major, because too often in the past it has been suggested that tourism was somehow the Cinderella of our export industries. Tourism has an importance away beyond the recognition given to it in politics today. It is our third largest revenue earner and, £ for £ invested, it returns more to the economy; yet we seek to detract from it down here by setting up this new Authority. The needs of tourism will be smothered unless CERT is retained with sectoral policy control. Tourism is not the poor relation as regards training policy and funding. It has a specified need and is complex in that it varies greatly from one sector to another. Tourist training should have recognition similar to that afforded to agricultural training as given under ACOT, for instance. ACOT have a training mandate in the agricultural sector of industry, but why should the tourist industry not have available to it its own training structure? What is so sacrosanct about maintaining this conglomerate so that they will impose their will on all surrounding them? Manufacturing industry and its agencies here have sufficient clout so far as numbers and money are concerned. They have always been able to impress their will and influence on the powers that be, but they will not do so on this occasion.
We have a strange kind of double think from the Government at this time. We spent the last few weeks breaking up a major organisation known as Córas Iompair Éireann, the transport authority, and we were told that it had to be done to create a more efficient system and give a better and more effective service to the whole country. It seems that that could best be achieved by smaller organisations. We were asked this week to confirm that in legislation, and in the same week we are told that we must cancel out all the other smaller organisations in the training arena and bring them in under one head. That is the kind of duplicity which we have become accustomed to during the lifetime of this Dáil, but it stops here tonight.
Somebody can ask me, justifiably, what the great need is for autonomy in this organisation, CERT. I say that there is need for that autonomy. I do not want this organisation dominated by the needs of manufacturing industry. I do not want them dominated by the needs of the IDA in regard to manufacturing and processing requirements because they will have to be satisfied anyway. If we are going to give new political status, new emphasis and revenue support to the tourism industry to create the thousands of new jobs that we expect it to do, then we do not wish to see it submerged under the control of organisations that have their main thrust in support of other industries. We want the organisation to be able to respond to the needs of tourism. We want CERT to influence tourism policy for job creation and manpower policy. If I were a Minister for Tourism I would like to be able to call on CERT to do a specific job, to help out a new initiative in tourism development but I would be denied that opportunity as Minister if the organisation did not report directly to me. Under the new industrial committee that will be structured into the new Authority, CERT will have to go four times around the mulberry bush before they even get as far as the board to enable them to pass on their report to the Minister. The budget of CERT should be related to tourism training needs. CERT have gained an international reputation in relation to training for the industry. Does the Minister want to dismantle their reputation and put in their place a miserable committee that will downgrade it and submerge it to the wishes of other major industries?
