I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 9 together.
I have already taken a number of steps to increase the supply of appropriately qualified computer graduates from third level colleges. I have allocated 1,800 places to the computer science area under the joint public/private sector £60 million capital initiative. This represents 29 per cent of the total of 6,200 additional places under the initiative. The other places under the initiative are for agreed areas of priority manpower needs, for example in science, engineering, mathematics and business studies.
I have also increased the number of places on one year postgraduate programmes in computer applications open to those with suitable primary degrees. The output in 1997 from this one year programme, including those under the advanced technical skills programme, will be over 800. It is planned to increase this output to 1,250 in 1998. Numbers can be increased further in subsequent years to the extent necessary.
In the current academic year I have also approved a range of new courses in the Dublin Institute of Technology/RTC sector in computing and associated disciplines, software engineering and multimedia applications development. The Government has also recently approved the establishment of a steering committee, chaired by the chairman of the Higher Education Authority, to begin a bidding and negotiation process with educational and training institutions. The aim of the committee is to identify the most cost effective way of providing 1,000 additional software graduates and 750 technicians per annum.
The committee will urgently examine all the viable possibilities for meeting this requirement. The committee's report will then be considered by Government in determining the best strategy. While I would not wish to pre-empt the work of the committee, it appears likely that the major contribution to addressing the skills needs in this area will come from the publicly funded third level institutions with an established record in providing appropriately qualified personnel.