A LACK of action from Government departments over the key area of skills training is already preventing Ireland from maximising its potential as Europe's software capital, industry specialists believe. The resulting delay in allocating funds to train more software and electronic engineers, known to those in the business as, `Propeller Heads', could leave Ireland with a damaging skills shortage in four years time.
In recent weeks, more and more Irish software and electronics companies have quietly lobbied the Department of Enterprise and Employment, pointing out that it takes four years for a university to produce a graduate, and that decisions must be taken now to meet demand in the next century.
At the root of the problem, sources say, is a lack of policy integration. Although IDA Ireland, uses the availability of a highly educated workforce as one of the main attractions in its packaging of the Republic to hightech multinationals, it has no control over how many students are trained.
In turn, the Department of Enterprise and Employment, which is known to be concerned about the issue, asks the Department of Education to train more electronics and software graduates, but the Department of Education, charged with handling the politically sensitive primary and secondary levels, says it has no more money.
It now appears proposals will go to Government next week from an inter departmental group also including Finance. But the industry feels much has to be done.
Behind the Government's apparent reluctance to tackle the "problem to date, many within the industry suspect, lies the issue of its relationship with the third level colleges. In particular senior civil servants may resist allowing universities - rather than the Government - to determine how, many students will be trained in which disciplines.
"Finance seems to take the view that as long as the universities are training, for example, too many vets and lawyers - who are then emigrating - there's no guarantee for the exchequer that extra resources won't be used just as unwisely," one software sector specialist says.
The colleges and the Department of Finance are also concerned that the demographic bulge that saw unprecedented numbers of school leavers seeking college places in the early 1990s is now tapering off. Investment at this stage in extra places in any discipline, some fear, would prove fruitless within a decade.
But the wrangle over control, or cash, has not assuaged the software and electronics industry. Its representatives point to the sector's quite phenomenal growth since the start of the 1990s. The National Software Directorate predicts that if there is a sufficient number of graduates, the industry will employ well over 20,000 people by the year 2000.
"We're very disappointed at the lack of linkage between industrial policy and education policy. We're missing job opportunities because we're not responding fast enough on the skills supply side," says Ms Katherine Lucey, the director of the Irish Software Association.
"Really, a significant investment in all technical disciplines is required. The Government needs to treat this as capital investment," she adds.
Inside successful Irish companies, executives are also questioning how serious is the Government's commitment to its own industrial investment policy. A fortnight ago, at the launch of a £15 million development plan by the fast growing Silicon Systems, the firm's managing director sounded a warning.
"The pace at which the electronics industry is moving is exceeding the rate at which students, are graduating," Mr Brian Long said. "Our growth is now dictated principally by the availability of engineers."
The shortage affects most other countries too. Industry analysts say that the US needs 195,000 new engineers every year, but colleges there are only turning out around 35,000.
But in Ireland, the demand to study computer related subjects at third level actually exceeds the supply. Last year, some 2,600 Leaving Certificate students placed computer studies as their number one choice on their CAO forms. Only half of these obtained places.
It is this sense of an opportunity being squandered that academics and those within the industry find most frustrating.
Earlier this week, the Paris correspondent of The Irish Times, Lara Marlowe, revealed that already, hundreds of computer graduates from France had flocked to Ireland to find work. "Ireland is now the third largest employer of French men abroad, after Britain and Germany," she wrote, quoting the latest figures from French state agencies.
Also attending the Silicon Systems launch was the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton. Known to be acutely aware that a future shortage could damage Ireland's reputation as a software and electronics magnet, he promised to bring proposals to the cabinet table within the next few weeks.
Although Government sources say he has a battle on his hands, it is believed Mr Bruton can force through some changes. These are likely to include an immediate move to create hundreds of `conversion courses', where graduates from related disciplines, such as mathematics or physics, take intensive classes for a year in computers.
