Further Education and Training Programmes Dail Éireann — 2020-10-20 ============================================================ Bernard Durkan (FG), Kildare North In a previous incarnation, I had occasion to visit eastern Europe where great emphasis was placed on technical skills and on polytechnics and it produced very well qualified students. On the report which the Minister is awaiting, I welcome his response in respect of encouraging, through the educational system, the location of jobs with high skill requirements. This needs to continue well into the future. Regardless of whatever else exists, that particular situation, whereby highly skilled people are available to work in a workplace, will always stand to us even in the face of competition. Is the Minister satisfied that we will be able to contend with the competition in the future given the investments that are taking place in all the locations worldwide at the same time? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-10-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:42+00:00 Sitting date: 2020-10-20