WITH investment by the State, the business community and individual citizens in education, Ireland could compete in the global market, and guarantee its future prosperity, the Government said last night. The wide ranging White Paper on Human Resource Development, released yesterday, aims to shift the emphasis of the State's approach, from programme led interventions to an objective driven strategy.
"Seventy five years after the foundation of the State, we must equip all members of society to participate and realise their potential to the fullest," said the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton. "The attainment of a better and more prosperous society is in our own hands."
The document, he said, represented the Government's vision of the preparations that were needed by Irish people to cope, and relish, the challenges and opportunities ahead.
"The White Paper provides key platforms for promoting a learning society; enhancing competitiveness; increasing jobs growth raising incomes; promoting equality; widening the career opportunities of those at work; reducing unemployment, especially long term unemployment; and ensuring efficient, effective and quality State and private human resource development and training provision," Mr Bruton said.
To encourage lifelong learning, he added, the Government had decided that fees of up to £1 000 per year paid by individuals towards the cost of approved training courses could be deductible from income liable to tax at the standard rate. To qualify for the tax break, he stressed, prior approval would be required from FAS. Initially, the scheme would be confined to selected computer related and foreign language courses.
The White Paper, Mr Bruton said, had exposed the low level of management skills, job specific skills and communications skills, particularly among small firms.
The Government was introducing a major awareness programme on skills and training needs of Irish business, Mr Bruton said to run initially for two years. This would cost £2 million. A new training networks programme would be established, to raise the standards of training, costing £5 million a year.
An extra £5 million annually would be allocated to the existing Training Support Scheme, he said and at least 75 per cent of the new allocation of over £12 million would be devoted to meeting the human resource development needs of small firms.
The Youth Progression Programme would be extended on a phased basis for all 18-21 year olds who reached a six month threshold on the dole, to prevent a drift into long term unemployment.
Mr Bruton said the Government would also create a new subsidiary of FAS, the National Employment Service, to develop and improve a general guidance and placement service across the Republic, and to negotiate with the providers of training, in line with the objectives of the White paper.
He said FAS would develop childcare training opportunities in order to increase the facilities available to women who wished to enter training or education programmes, or take up jobs.
The document was received with caution last night: Fianna Fail said it was long on aspiration but short on specifics and resources; while the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed said it had fudged the relationship between FAS and the new agency.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions said that without real partnership between workers and employers based on equality, the document would wind up gathering dust on a shelf.
In order to undo the damage already caused, and to achieve the aims of the White Paper, radical action is needed immediately. Companies should be levied to help finance this emergency training programme, said Mr Kevin Duffy, the ICTU assistant general secretary.
ISME, the small and medium enterprises lobby group, said that while the philosophy of the White Paper was commendable, it needed to be discussed without the interference of a pending general election.
