A state-sponsored scheme to train long-term unemployed people in computer skills has begun to train refugees in order to meet skill shortages. Sixteen people from 11 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, are involved.
They include a dentist, electrician, military paramedic, former engineering manager and an interpreter. They vary in age from their early 30s to mid-50s. Two of them are women.
Most of the trainees have good English and have passed special aptitude tests, in some cases with outstanding marks. According to Fast-track to Information Technology (FIT) three times as many similarly qualified people applied for the course but could not be taken on because they are asylum-seekers. All the successful applicants have refugee status.
FIT was set up by the Government in 1999 with the co-operation of 27 major IT companies in Ireland. It grew out of the "Tramlines" project launched by the Ballymun Jobs Centre in 1994 to train the longterm unemployed in high-level IT skills.
So far, 1,400 people have graduated. The latest batch of 300 are due to qualify next week.
Many employers prefer the long-term unemployed to IT graduates because they tend to have a more mature approach to work. FIT itself employs only seven people and is, to quote its chief executive, Mr Peter Davitt, "a virtual organisation".
The scheme designs training programmes in conjunction with industry and then liaises between companies and State agencies to maximise use of training resources.
The 16 refugees joining the programme this week will initially attend VTOS schemes run by the vocational education committees. They come from Russia, Belarus, Romania, the former Yugoslavia, Palestine, Latvia, Cuba, Sierra Leone, the Congo and Ghana.
Mr Davitt pioneered the FIT method in Ballymun, challenging the assumption that only high-performance students from mainstream educational institutes could cope with IT graduate level courses.
Among companies represented on the FIT board are AOL Technologies, Compaq, Microsoft, IBM, MediaLaburope, Dell, Siemens and Eircom.