The Government is committed to ensuring an adequate skills supply to meet the needs of the economy. In 1997 we established an expert group on future skills needs to identify in a systematic way the skills requirements of different sectors of the economy and to advise on the actions necessary to meet those needs. The expert group's first report was completed in June 1998 and dealt with the software and electronics sectors.
My Department is responding to the expert group's report in a number of ways:
–An additional £3.2 million has been allocated to FÁS in my Departments 1999 Estimate to train an extra 730 people for the electronics and software sectors.
–Enterprise Ireland has established a programme aimed at attracting Irish people abroad back to Ireland to work in the information technology sector.