Vol. 576 No. 5
159 Mr. Durkan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if she has satisfied herself that there are sufficient adequately skilled personnel in the workforce to ensure continued growth in the economy and the ability to meet ongoing and increasing demands in respect of various services; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30128/03]
Ireland, in common with other developed economic regions, is faced with the challenge of ensuring its future economic prosperity against a backdrop of rising costs at home and increasing competition from abroad, the inevitable corollary of globalisation and advances in technology. As other sources of competitive advantage come under pressure, skills are assuming an ever-greater importance for our future economic development.
The expert group on future skills needs, since its establishment in 1997, has had a considerable input to skills and education policy. The fourth report of the expert group, published in October 2003, outlines a range of specific actions to ensure that an inadequate supply of skills does not hinder our economic growth. The report brought together, in summary form, all the individual pieces of research undertaken by the expert group over the period 2002 to 2003 and addresses the future skills needs of key sectors in the Irish economy including ICT, biotechnology, construction, and food processing, and occupations such as engineering and financial services. The report makes recommendations to both education and business to ensure an adequate supply of skills in these areas. The group's recommendations for the overall labour market focus primarily on increasing the proportion of highly skilled workers in the labour force by: upskilling, reskilling improving the quality of the vocational systems, increasing the proportion of third-level science and engineering graduates, efforts to improve the take-up of further education for disadvantaged groups, and establishing a more targeted immigration policy.
Ensuring the availability of an appropriate skilled workforce is the shared responsibility of employers, the State and employees. The continuing focus for the Department will be to encourage and support the skills agenda through education and training and through the operations of a flexible economic immigration policy.
