Departmental Funding
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Brendan Smith (FF), Cavan-Monaghan

I thank the Minister for his response and I know of his personal commitment to the project. As I assured him previously at the Oireachtas committee and at other meetings, when the project gets to tender stage it will be advanced as quickly as possible by Cavan and Monaghan ETB. We have an opportunity to work in conjunction with Monaghan Institute and South West College in Enniskillen. It is being practical, for which the Minister and I have advocated for many years. Thankfully, we are in a position today, with the political initiative since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, to have greater collaboration across different aspects of society. We have seen the all-Ireland economy grow. We now need to upskill our people, and to provide skills and training on an all-Ireland basis. Earlier today, the Oireachtas committee on further and higher education heard from representatives of IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and Skillnet.
They were talking about a skills shortages. Thankfully, today we are talking about skills shortages in Ireland because in the past, unfortunately, we did not have employment opportunities. There is a great opportunity to utilise the potential of the further education sector to contribute to training and upskilling people for very worthwhile employment.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29