Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 22 Apr 1998

Vol. 489 No. 7

Written Answers. - Women's Employment Opportunities.

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Miss Harney)

I presume the Deputy is referring in this instance to needs of women in the home in so far as they are seeking to re-enter the labour market. The Government in its Programme, and Action Programme for the Millennium, is committed to ensuring that opportunities will be made available to women in the home to undertake training in order to return to work. In this regard it should be clearly understood that all training courses run by FÁS — the training and employment authority — are open to every person who is unemployed and seeking employment regardless of gender, though preference is given to people on the live register.

FÁS has been endeavouring through its Action Programme for Women to increase the level of female participation on all FÁS programmes. The focus of the agency's strategy has been to promote womens participation in the full range of specific skills training courses, the largest programme run by FÁS, by targeting places in non-traditional and new technology courses in which there has been little or no previous representation by women. A number of innovative and flexible approaches to training have been undertaken, including flexibility of hours of attendance and multi-media delivery of training. Both the latter innovations are particularly suitable to the training needs of women in the home. In 1997, 5,171 women completed specific skills training courses with FÁS. This represented 44 per cent of the total number of people completing such training.

FÁS also provides courses such as Return to Work and Enterprise Training which has a high proportion of women participants, particularly home-makers. In addition to the standard return to work course FÁS has developed and implemented a pilot project which delivers return to work training and guidance services in a more flexible manner. In 1997, 536 women of the 1,694 who participated in the return to work programme participated in this pilot project. FÁS is also very conscious of the need for child care facilities for women returning to work, and contributes over £5 million per annum to community-based child care provision by way of support for community employment projects. Approximately 130 community employment projects have such a child care dimension. Many of these facilities provide community-based child care for women undertaking training or education.

Through its action programme, FÁS has continually sought more and better ways of meeting women's training and employment needs and the fact that the number of women participating on FÁS training programmes as a percentage of total participation is increasing at 43.4 per cent shows that its efforts are bearing fruit.

Finally, a working group chaired by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs is now looking at the issue of womens access to labour market opportunities and should report to the Government in mid-1998. The working group includes social partner representation, including the National Womens Council of Ireland. The groups recommendations should help the Government plan its strategy for the integration of women into all forms of training and employment.