Speech by the Tánaiste at the all-island Skills Conference in the Millennium Forum Derry

Thursday 9 October, 2008

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to be in this historic city again this morning and to participate in this important all-island Skills Conference.

I am a close neighbour and have represented the constituency of Donegal South-West for over 20 years. I am, therefore, well aware of the challenges that border and peripheral areas face in providing and retaining jobs to ensure the viability and prosperity of local communities. Here at the local level the skills and flexibility of the workforce are major determinants of progress and quality of life. So too is the added value that mutual cooperation can bring – a subject that I will later return to.

My role as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment gives me national responsibilities for the advancement of core social and economic objectives. They include facilitating the growth of indigenous businesses, attracting inward investment and ensuring improved export performance. Central to success in these areas also is the calibre and competence of our workers. That in turn reflects the quality and impact of experiences in the education and training systems and, subsequently, the extent to which they commit to learning throughout life and to keeping abreast of change - which as we know can be sudden and radical.

These are some of the reasons why this first all-island Skills Conference is important and timely. It has its origins in a Joint Communiqué of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in 2006. That pointed to the significant potential for improving North/South collaboration through joint engagement and study so as to improve the functioning of the labour market on the island. In seeking to realise this objective high priority has to be given to ensuring that our respective policies and programmes are in harmony with the present and emerging skills needs of the labour market and that dependable and sophisticated techniques are deployed in this respect. I am, therefore, pleased that we have been working so well together to that end.

I am particularly pleased at the speed with which this work has been initiated and the nature of the commitment that has been a hallmark of interaction between our respective Government Departments and skills agencies. The outcome – the all-island Skills Study - is the template for your work today. We have not had such a document before and I know that its publication will serve to reinforce the impetus that is now evident.

That impetus is leading to mutual understanding of the labour market dynamics and the challenges that arise for both our administrations. It involves better appreciating the possibilities for cooperatively devising the right responses and more flexible and agile labour markets that better serve the needs of workers and businesses alike - and particularly so in difficult economic times.

Against this background this conference brings together Ministers, policy makers, employers and trade union representatives to discuss skills needs and how we can together better anticipate and satisfy those needs by focusing on an all-island labour market. In that work we recognise that, while there are significant similarities as well as significant differences, the political challenges are alike.

I want now to say something about what we have been doing in this important policy area.

For more than a decade my Government has directed significant funding and research resources to anticipating the profile and extent of emerging skills needs. We have implemented recommendations that have come from regular and structured consultations with key economic, educational and training interests in the Expert Group for Future Skills Needs. We have implemented or adapted policies and focused public funding – sourced both for our exchequer and from the structural fund of the European Union - to ensure that necessary skills are being anticipated and provided. This is not an easy task. However, it is a vital one. It involves a commitment to life-long learning and to prioritised indispensable interventions that include:

• Continually striving to ensure the quality, content and reach of formal education programmes
• Concerted efforts to improve retention levels in primary and secondary education
• Focused interventions to effectively confront and lessen the incidence of early school leaving – a particular challenge in areas that lack advantages that are common elsewhere and
• Retraining those at work, especially those without the skills and qualifications necessary to prosper in modern workplaces and those at risk of redundancy at this time

The priority that my Government has given to education and training is indicative of our appreciation that investment in people has a major determining effect on a range of our other social and economic objectives. Importantly, those objectives also include supporting programmes to address the educational and vocational development needs of immigrants – a significant cohort of workers who have contributed much to recent progress.

While the details of the all-island skills study will be addressed later, it is interesting to note that both economies have registered impressive rates of employment growth in the last decade. Total employment on the island increased by almost 50% to 2.9 million in 2007. The study also provides useful information and analysis on key economic sectors for both economies such as the tourism and hospitality, information and communications technology as well as on the engineering sector. Overall, it will inform our Skills Groups in delivering their respective mandates in future in a way that is more reinforcing.

However, we must be aware that we are not unique in our focus on skills development and labour market operations. Our competitors will continue to work hard to make their business climates and infrastructures more attractive to global investors. Some will rely on labour cost advantages. The all-island economy is relatively small and open. Together we are now facing change and shocks. Financial uncertainty and generally slower world growth is likely to be with us for a while. Yet both parts of the island remain an attractive location for high-end, skill-intensive operations. It is true nonetheless that if we are to continue to prosper in a difficult global environment it is far better that we are working together to realise the mutual benefits and added value that come from sharing expertise and experience.

South of the border, our social partnership model is also based on recognition of the value of working together to mutual advantage. There is no need to stress that, like much of the developed world, we also are experiencing a downturn in economic activity. However, my Government has taken, and will continue to take, decisive action to address the problems that confront it.

In this regard I very much welcome the fact that it has been possible to reach agreement with representatives of economic and social partners on the terms of a new national pay deal. That will now be considered by their councils and executives with a view to ratification in the near future. This new agreement provides us with an important transitional framework for addressing the economic and social challenges that we face in the immediate period ahead.

The time it has taken to reach agreement since negotiations first got underway almost six months ago reflects the many complex policy issues that have had to be dealt with. Of course, the backdrop of an increasingly difficult and uncertain economic environment also made the process more difficult that it otherwise might have been. As the negotiations intensified, it became clear to all the parties involved that there would have to be trade-offs if an outcome that addressed the concerns of all was to emerge.

So, the agreement reached reflects a sensible compromise and the best terms that could be achieved in current circumstances. Most importantly, it will have positive implications for investors and workers alike. If ratified it will provide certainty in pay determination for a period ahead, it will contribute to safeguarding employment and to maintaining industrial peace. The latter consideration has been a hallmark of social partnership agreements that have so significantly benefited our economy over the last 21 years.

I am hopeful then that all concerned will recognise the clear benefits of the agreement – for themselves, their organisations and the whole community and that they will proceed to ratify it over the coming weeks.

I want to now mention some of the initiatives in north/south cooperation that have been beneficial to our citizens in both parts of the island. The template for this has been the Comprehensive Study on the All-Island Economy.

We are now operating in a single electricity market for the island. That not only has contributed to improving competitiveness on both sides, it has also improved dependability of supply. We are also working closely together on joining other major infrastructural projects. Chief among these is the Dundalk to Newry section of the M1/A1 and the agreement to provide dual carriageway standard of road linking Derry and Letterkenny. This is project that I will monitor with a more than keen interest. I want to see high usage of that road, as I will be coming to Derry a lot – and I hope that you too will be coming to Donegal.

Insofar as my own responsibilities are concerned, Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland have jointly launched a North/South innovation voucher scheme. This allows companies in both parts of the island to access trainers and knowledge providers throughout the island. It improves the choice range available to all and increases the variety and standard on professional inputs the better to promote competitiveness and growth of our businesses.

Developing programmes and initiatives to exploit the mutual benefits of co-operation is also a key objective of InterTrade Ireland. It is currently working with promoters of the Women in Technology and Science programme. Here it is piloting a unique all-island initiative to allow experienced women with science, engineering or technological backgrounds to return to the workforce. At present 20 recruits are retraining in advance of again entering the active labour market. This programme gives employers access to an untapped resource and to an educated and experienced pool of trained and talented workers.

I want especially to refer to the North West Gateway Initiative. It covers a range of infrastructural and other investment types and is a major response from both sides to meeting the development needs of this particular region. Its focus is to lift skill levels, to improve physical infrastructure and accessibility and so to promote development, economic growth and job opportunities.

It incorporates the North West Gateway Strategic Alliance that is led by the Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT) partnered with the University of Ulster. Its objective is to provide a specification for the most effective delivery of additional higher education capacity for the North West region. Our host last night, and President of LYIT, Paul Hannigan, together with Professor Bernie Hannigan of the University of Ulster will later talk to you about progress made to date. When the project has been successfully completed I know that it will provide a blueprint for other all-island initiatives in other areas of public policy.

In this vein and as the responsible Ministers we want to see the cooperation that had led us to meeting here this morning continuing and intensifying in the years ahead. A priority work programme might now be identified and delivered in a sequence that will inform the objectives and outcomes of our respective education and training systems and so ensure that we progressively improve our respective performances. We might organise another conference of this type in another two years to mark progress in the intervening time.

As I said already, this work contributes in an important way to the realisation of our wider social and economic goals. It is indispensable to enhanced productivity, to innovation, to heightened competitiveness, to job creation, to increasing exports and to bettering trade performance in the global market in which we both operate. Now, as never before, education, skills and competencies determine the quality of individual lives, their earning potential and their wellbeing.

In conclusion I want to thank the chairpersons of the two skills groups, Catherine Bell and Anne Heraty for the important work that we deal with today. In delivering it they and their teams have done us all an important service that has involved willing and open cooperation, commitment and not a little expertise.

I want particularly to thank Sir Reg Empey and the staff of his Department for having made such a valuable and valued contribution, for hosting this conference today and for his customary cooperation and support that is always given in a context of partnership and positive interaction.

I wish you well in your deliberations in the course of the day and look forward to continuing constructive collaboration on skills development and education and training policies in the future.

ENDS/ETE1952a