John Bruton
Ceist:4 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach the communications, if any, he has had with the National Competitiveness Council which reports to him on key competitiveness issues. [17643/98]
Ceisteanna—Questions. - National Competitiveness Council.
Ruairí Quinn
Ceist:5 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach the work programme of the National Competitiveness Council; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20165/98]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 and 5 together.
I met with the chairman of the National Competitiveness Council, Mr. Brian Patterson, on Tuesday, 22 September. Mr. Patterson briefed me on the council's ongoing programme of work. The council has recently prepared a statement on skills and a statement on telecommunications. These will be published shortly following their submission to Government. The council is also working on its next annual report and on a statement on costs, both of which will be published early in 1999.
Is the Taoiseach aware one of the main concerns of the National Competitiveness Council is to establish a strategy for the making available of broad band telecommunications facilities? Will he agree that broad band is where jobs will be provided, given that most modern jobs cannot be provided without usage of broad band? Will he further agree it is not adequate to leave this simply to the free market, allowing for provision to be made only where there is already a guarantee of a profit for the private providers? Will the Taoiseach agree that the Government, in the interests of regional population distribution and the avoidance of excessive congestion in and around Dublin, needs to take a strategic view to ensure broad band communications are provided to important centres in the west and in areas that are otherwise peripheral so that call centre jobs and other jobs of that nature can be attracted to those areas? The pump must be primed by Government provision and leadership in this area. It cannot be left solely to the market.
What the Deputy has said is broadly correct and is in line with what the Minister for Public Enterprise has stated. The whole area of telecommunications infrastructure is internationally competitive and is vital to our future. That is the reason the Government has taken various decisions. The telecommunications market will be liberalised by 1 December 1998. The powers of the regulator have been reviewed to give her stronger powers; the awareness campaign is progressing; the telecommunications infrastructure legislation, which is vital, is progressing; the Government is exploring ways of increasing investment in Telecom infrastructure, particularly the broad band, and is looking at proposals on e-commerce; and the advisory committee on telecommunications, which has a number of world renowned experts, is to report before Christmas on how we can deal with this issue. I agree that if we can set up science parks and e-commerce centres, we will have the capability to move away from the centre. The Minister attended a recent international conference on this and I read her report on it. If we develop this area properly and keep ahead of what is happening elsewhere, we will be able provide tremendous opportunities in regional areas, and that is the right way to proceed.
Will the Government publish a strategic map showing the broadband communications connections and the towns and arteries within them that will have a broadband network so that the people will know the Government's physical plan for the development of employment through telecommunications? This is not something that should be kept private between the telecommunications regulator and the companies with the public not knowing ultimately where the broadband connections will be provided. There should be a national plan on this issue which should be published and made available for everyone to discuss. Choices will be made to provide broadband connection in some places and not in others. Will the Taoiseach agree that those choices should be public knowledge?
The Minister will have such a plan. She has commissioned a report and I thank the group who are working on it. I am not sure what form the report will take, but the group has considered those aspects in terms of infrastructure. I do not want to pre-empt the report by saying how it will be published, but it will be published.
It is not a question of publishing the consultants' report. Will the Government publish decisions as to what it intends to do in this matter? Will that be in the form of a map that will be transparent and show where the routes will be provided? If so, when will the Government publish its strategy on this?
The Deputy will appreciate that it would be wise to await the report before the Government makes a decision. I said the report will be ready in December, but the Minister has told me it will be ready on 18 November. We will examine it as well as the work of the Information Society Commission, the work of the advisory group working on behalf of the Minister and the work of others in the private sector who have been studying e-commerce. There are a number of major infrastructural projects in this area and I hope we will be able to move forward on a number of them.
Can I take it from what the Taoiseach said that at the end of this process he is opposed to publishing a map that would indicate those towns that will have access to broadband connection? He failed to answer that question put by Leader of the Fine Gael Party. Did the Taoiseach discuss with the Chairman of the National Competitiveness Council the competitive or non-competitive the position of medical consultants here?
On the Deputy's first question, we must await the recommendations of the report of the advisory group. The Minister has been engaged in discussions with that group who have devoted an enormous amount of time to this work. It is not for us to jump in and put forward proposals before we have sight of that report. The Department and some of the State agencies have worked actively in this area. The IDA and Telecom have also been actively involved. I did not have any discussions with the National Competitiveness Council about medical consultants.
Will the Taoiseach agree that wasteful expenditure in the public service is probably in the order of between £100 million and £300 million annually? Given that industry must become competitive in view of the pending pressures of EMU, is it not time the public sector gave the lead and the Taoiseach, as head of Government, took steps to ensure that Ministers and public agencies identify and cut out wasteful public expenditure and use such funds in a more productive way?
That question is not strictly relevant to the question on the National Competitiveness Council. I hope Ministers, State agencies and their chief executives constantly ensure that resources are used to the best effect.
The Taoiseach mentioned that the skills group of the competitiveness council has published a report. Does he agree there is a huge and urgent need to provide re-skilling and upskilling for workers in firms such as Fruit of the Loom and Krups where jobs are vulnerable so that these jobs are not lost, or if they are lost that the people have the skills to move on to other jobs? Does he also agree that there is a serious and almost scandalous neglect of in-house training by employers in significant firms in Ireland at present and that the failure to invest in training is a betrayal of employees because it makes them vulnerable to the kind of fate the employees in Krups and Fruit of the Loom are suffering or fear they will suffer?
We discussed that issue in the House a few weeks ago when I agreed with the Deputy. I hope the Estimates will address this from the Exchequer point of view. There is also a commitment by the private sector to put money into training. We are not high on the OECD league of companies or countries that put money into training. People should do more. However, because of the present skills shortage the Department and the agencies will address it in the Estimates.