EU/IRELAND: The complexity of various EU initiatives in education and training can give rise to understandable impatience at the pace of progress, according to the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey.
"In a situation where we are playing catch-up with the competition, and I want the Union to be leading the way, then I think I am right to be impatient," he said.
"Nearly 500 million of our citizens are expecting us to deliver . . . and what are we trying to achieve? The answer is a real open market for workers and learners."
Mr Dempsey was speaking at the opening of a conference in Dublin Castle yesterday entitled "Towards 2010 - common themes and approaches in higher education and vocational education and training in Europe".
The conference, organised by the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland, brought together experts from a wide variety of education backgrounds to discuss the transferability of qualifications across Europe.
This was, Mr Dempsey said, central to achieving an open market for workers and learners.
"The only way we can achieve this objective is to have much improved arrangements for the transparency of qualifications, and for the recognition of qualifications," he said. The development of the Europass initiative - which aims to produce a common framework for transparency - would, he added, be "critically important" in this regard.
Other speakers at the day-long conference included Mr Nikolaus Van der Pas, Director General for Education and Culture of the EU Commission.