Austin Currie
Ceist:10 Mr. Currie asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the proposals, if any, he has for encouraging more training by industrial and service firms.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Industrial Training.
Patrick D. Harte
Ceist:49 Mr. Harte asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the proposals, if any, he has for encouraging more training by industrial and service firms.
Eamon Gilmore
Ceist:73 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment if his attention has been drawn to the recent NESC report, Education and Training Policies for Economic and Social Development, which found that the Irish labour force has low levels of qualifications, is weak in management skills and poorly prepared for economic change; the steps, if any, he plans to take to address these shortcomings; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Edward Nealon
Ceist:91 Mr. Nealon asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment whether he plans to provide prospective trainees with training vouchers so that there can be more choice and diversity in training available.
Jim Higgins
Ceist:95 Mr. J. Higgins asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment whether he plans to provide prospective trainees with training vouchers so that there can be more choice and diversity in training available.
John Bruton
Ceist:110 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment his views on the proposal contained in the White Paper of the Commission of the European Communities, Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, to the effect that there should be a generalised and versatile system of training credits or training vouchers which all young people would receive and which they could spend relatively freely throughout their working lives in order to obtain new knowledge and update their skills; and the steps, if any, he proposes to take to introduce such a system in Ireland.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 10, 49, 73, 91, 95 and 110 together.
I am aware of the findings of the NESC report referred to by Deputy Gilmore.
The importance of raising the skills levels of the Irish labour force and the certification of those skills were among the main recommendations of Cullition and Moriarty.
In both the Programme for a Partnership Government and its response to the conclusions of the Moriarty report, the Government gave clear recognition to the need to increase radically the focus of Irish industry towards certified training for management and all workers. The Government has set a number of specific objectives to support this process. These include the standards-based apprenticeship system, with which this House is familiar — particularly the Deputies opposite — and the creation of a National Education and Training Certification Board which will develop a certification system. We hope this new board will be in place shortly.
My Department is also working closely with the Department of Education and FÁS to ensure that the vocational training and educational courses available are relevant to the needs of employers. FÁS has established an industry division which was one of the recommendations of Culliton.
The industrial training committee has been established and it has produced a number of reports on textiles, clothing, chemical and allied products and engineering sectors. We will shortly have a report on the food, drink and tobacco sector. These reports are instrumental in identifying what needs to be done to increase the level of training in those sectors. We recognise, of course, that further follow-up action is required.
Primarily, the responsibility for training those at work rests with employers. Increased investment by employers in training and retraining is of paramount importance in the context of the Single Market. The Government will continue to play an important role in promoting and encouraging the provision of training by employers for their employees.
A question was asked about training vouchers. Deputies should be aware that references to training credits or vouchers in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment must be read in the overall context of the White Paper. In this regard, the Commission has called on everyone "to conduct analysis of our strengths and weaknesses and to adapt behaviour to the rapid changes taking place in today's world". I can confirm that the Government will play a full role in that process. We are not at all sure that the issues of vouchers would enhance the choice and diversity of training available but I remain to be persuaded on that.
Will the Minister agree that her reply is a great deal of flannel, without any proposals for encouraging a greater level of training by industrial firms in Ireland? Will she also agree that the Government gave a commitment that by July 1993 the Department of Enterprise and Employment would produce such proposals but that has not happened. What the Minister recited here is a rehash of projects we knew were in the pipeline. Surely it is incumbent on the Government — if it is to pursue the Culliton agenda — to meet these deadlines and bring forward proposals as promised? The National Education and Training Certification Board, the national standards authority, which the Minister says will soon be appointed, was to have been appointed and operational by October 1993. Therefore, we are not meeting the deadlines we set ourselves. Will the Government admit it cannot meet its deadlines, set new ones and adhere to them.
I accept that we have fallen behind in the establishment of the National Education and Training Certification Board, but we hope to publicly announce the proposal for its establishment shortly. With regard to industry training, quite an amount of work has been done, sector by sector within FÁS, the relevant reports have been published and make very interesting reading——
The Department was supposed to do it, not FÁS. The Minister should read Culliton and Moriarty.
I know all about Culliton and Moriarty; I have responsibility for that section. On the matter of training for industry, we have commissioned FÁS to bring out a sector by sector report. It did so in the case of those I announced on textiles, clothing, chemical and allied products and the report on the food, drink and tobacco sectors will come to hand shortly. Based on those very fine reports we can clearly identify employers' needs and I should like to hear Deputy Richard Bruton's viewpoint. Surely there must also be a willingness by employers to engage in training, to realise that it is essential not just today and tomorrow but for the future, not alone of their firms, but the sector in general. We do not have that strong training ethic in any sector of our industry. It is the Government's job to seek to cajole and persuade employers along that path but sometimes employers are reluctant to do so. They would prefer to be given the money to do the training. I do not know whether that constitutes the right approach. We are moving along, albeit at a slower pace than outlined by Moriarty, the identified path to encourage greater training.
My views are not under scrutiny but the Minister's stewardship of the responsibility she was given under the Moriarty report. Will she confirm that the Government has no proposals for encouraging a greater level of training by firms although it was promised they would be completed by July 1993? Will she agree that citing sectoral reports FÁS may conduct, which have comprised an ongoing feature of their work, is not responding to the Department's clear commitment to produce proposals to encourage training by industry?
I certainly do not accept what Deputy Bruton said because I was referring to new sectoral reports. Very eminent people undertook voluntarily to head the various sectors of industry, came into FÁS and gave a strong voluntary commitment to undertake those sectoral reports. I launched them and each is now endeavouring to identify the nature of skills needed within the respective industrial sectors, which was part of the brief given to the committee and its chairman in each of the sectors. It is my understanding that that is the proper way to progress. The Deputy said it was the responsibility of my Department, FÁS comes within the remit of my Department which clearly has the legislative remit, and through Culliton and Moriarty, to attend to the needs of the various sectors. I freely admit we have not adhered to the time limit for the establishment of the National Education and Training Certificate Board but I assure the House that we hope to announce those proposals very shortly. I should like to think that one of my greatest tasks — to which end I have toured the country with IBEC engaging in various discussions — is to foster and encourage the growth of commitment to training within firms generally. That is a prerequisite to dealing with each individual sector.
It is quite clear that Moriarty did not envisage FÁS sectoral reports but that the Department of Enterprise and Employment would lay proposals before industry which would deal with issues involved in funding an increased level of training for work, especially upgrading the skills of those at work. It as also clear that the Government was to lay down these proposals before July 1993. The Minister of State did not list any such proposals. Will she agree, therefore, to set a new schedule and deliver on the promised proposals?
I cannot agree with Deputy Bruton because legislation clearly designates FÁS as the agency responsible for the training needs of the employed and the unemployed. That is the nature of the legislation and that was recognised in the Culliton report. I mean by "the Government", the Government working in tandem with the agencies under its aegis, in this case FÁS under the aegis of the Department of Enterprise and Employment. It would be one thing if I had said we fulfilled our remit but I admitted there has been a slippage in regard to the establishment of the National Education and Training Certification Board and that I hoped to produce proposals in that respect very shortly.
The Minister of State mentioned two sectors, food, drink and tobacco and the chemical industry. Will she accept that, within those sectors, training grants and schemes have been available for the past 25-30 years? Furthermore, will she agree that the two sectors she picked out are probably the most advanced — technologically and in training — of all the relevant sectors? Will she respond to the other element of the question, what encouragement is given to service-type industries where the same mechanism for training was not fostered or engendered in the past?
I picked those because they were areas in respect of which sectoral studies had been completed. The one on the services industry is very interesting because, as the Deputy knows, there was a recent report on the overall services arena and its job-generating potential. Inherent in that report was the need for training within the services industry also, a matter to which I have certainly given thought. Clearly we must initiate studies to ascertain how that can be delivered.