Is main liom ar dtús mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leat, a Cheann Comhairle, as ucht an t-am seo a thabhairt dom chun an cheist seo a phlé.
I put this question down and asked a number of supplementaries today and I must say the Minister gave a rather comprehensive reply. However, I feel strongly about this particular question and consequently I asked for your indulgence to raise it on the adjournment. I am grateful to you for giving me permission to do so. First of all, I would like to say that the whole idea in regional technical colleges—I emphasise the word "regional"—was to cater for the particular region in which the college was situated. There was a tendency to look for higher education away from the rural areas of the country, to look towards the capital city or some other city. The idea of having a certain flavour of the region in the regional college was, in my opinion, a very good one.
The particular establishment we are talking about is in Letterkenny in a county where there is a flourishing fishing industry and there is also a marine radio station. I do not have to expand on that. Killybegs, Burtonport, Greencastle and Malin Head are all important in the fishing industry and important in the marine field. We pointed out today that there was not very much expense involved in this particular project for Letterkenny. My contention is, while this is an important consideration, it is not the sole one. The people on the spot need this service.
There are three fully qualified teachers in the regional technical college in Letterkenny capable of conducting this course. The course is an internationally recognised one and consequently should attract people from the Six Counties, which is quite near and which also has an interest in the fishing industry and in the radio officer course.
It is important to refer to the employment possibilities in this field. We know that at the present moment one of the most serious problems facing the country is the provision of employment for young people. This problem is particularly acute in the north-western area. We know that the companies who employ marine radio officers are very anxious to have more people trained. They are on record as having said that they could take exactly double the number who qualify in the country each year. This is an important consideration.
I know that AnCO have been putting on courses for young people but I am a little pessimistic about these courses. There are courses being planned for young school leavers with no job prospects at the end of them, so it looks very much as if we may be using the sum of money from the European Social Fund merely to mark time. I am not saying that the actual training that is given will be a dead loss but when you conduct a short course, no matter how good it is, no matter how intensive it is, if a long period elapses before the participant succeeds in getting a job the training certainly wears away.
We are assured that there is no difficulty with regard to employment in this particular field. I instanced the Marconi Company, who are anxious to recruit as many marine radio officers as possible. As I have already stated, there are three qualified people ready to run this course in the technical college. I am assured that the cost of equipment is as low as approximately £10,000. I am also assured that at one period the college actually had that amount of money available had they been permitted to use it. It is a strange thing that they should not be allowed to use it, arguing from the premise I started with, that the regional college should cater for the region, that those courses should have a flavour of the region in which the college is situated.
With regard to the argument that the Government and the Minister for Education are advised that it would be better to concentrate this type of training and education in one place, to a certain extent I go along with that argument. In particular I would agree with it fully if it meant that there was to be large capital expenditure in many places. As a consequence of this one could argue that the country would not be able to afford this, but in this particular instance there is not a large capital investment involved. Consequently I see no merit at all in concentration of the course in the regional technical college in Cork only. I know, as the Minister stated today in the House, that there was an effort to retain a school in Dún Laoghaire to cover the east coast and the arguments for that are substantial. I would like to point out that, due to the decision that the course will be concentrated only in Cork city, there is no facility available to anybody north of the Dublin-Limerick line.
This is a serious handicap to the people particularly in the Donegal area. A great deal of euphoria has gone out of our hopes for off-shore gas and oil but I am still optimistic enough to think that this will develop as a major industry and will cause greater demand for these officers. Recently we have been putting it on the line that a 50-mile fishing limit is very important for the development of the fishing industry in this country and it looks as if there will be a demand if we succeed. The Fianna Fáil party and the Minister for Foreign Affairs seem to be in agreement that they want a 50-mile limit with no question of quotas. This will demand an increase in middle water trawlers and consequently further demand for marine radio officers. There is general agreement now that professional people should have in-service courses to keep them up to date with their specialities. It is a bit much to have people from Killybegs, Greencastle or some such place in a highly competitive industry like fishing taking off down to Cork for courses when, if the facility were available in Letterkenny, they would be able to fit it in with their ordinary work. This is an important aspect of this case. If the paltry sum of £10,000 or £15,000 is not available at the moment, the equipment for this course could be provided at a rental of £4,000 or £4,500 per annum. That is a paltry sum when we weigh it against the advantages which the course could provide.
For these reasons I appeal to the Minister to have another look at the situation. If we are to believe rumours, the Minister may be involved in the whole European sea question and it would be nice to think that if we succeeded in having a 50-mile limit declared under satisfactory conditions the Minister would have taken steps to see to it that we had trained technicians to cover the new increase in the middle water trawlers, the increase in demand at the type of station that we have at Malin Head in Donegal. I would like to reiterate what I said about the possibility of support for the course from the Six Counties. A very healthy development in recent years in Donegal and in Monaghan has been the number of people who are going for higher education to Coleraine. It would be nice to think that a first class nationally and internationally recognised course for marine radio officers would be made available in Letterkenny through the action of this Government which would cater for increasing numbers from the Six Counties. I am appealing to the Minister to see to it that the regional element in the college is emphasised, that jobs for trained personnel that are there for the asking will be taken up by people from Donegal or from Derry, that the expertise available in the college be put to this use and I am asking the Minister, above all, to take into consideration the low cost to his Department of developing this course.
