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Joint Government-Industry ICT Action Plan launched - Quinn & Bruton

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn and Jobs Minister Richard Bruton today launched the Joint Government – Industry

ICT Action Plan: Meeting the High Level ICT Skills Needs of Enterprise in Ireland.

Launching the Action Plan, Minister Quinn said that

“Providing the right skills at the right time for the right jobs is absolutely essential if we are to get the Irish economy back on its feet.

“We need to take action to develop a sustainable domestic supply of high level ICT skills over time to drive the further expansion and development of the sector and to support innovation and growth across other sectors of the economy.

“I’m very pleased to announce today that more than 750 places are being made available on 17 new graduate skills conversion programmes across the country. People can apply for a place today, through the Bluebrick website, for courses commencing in March.

“Participation on the programmes will be fully subsidised by my Department; no fees will be charged.”

The Action Plan also sets out how we are going to build the supply and quality of graduates in the medium term to long term. It establishes an ambitious target of doubling the annual output of ICT graduates from 1,000 this year to 2,000 by 2018.

Minister Richard Bruton added,

The Government’s plan to get jobs and growth back into the country will have no ‘big bang’ solution, but will require transformation across all sectors and a brick-by-brick rebuilding of the economy. A key part of this will be to get the greatest possible benefit out of the strengths we have, and the ICT sector, where there are over 1000 vacancies and great potential for future growth, provides a major opportunity for employment if we can provide the necessary skills.

A key action contained in the Plan is the development of a High Level ICT Foresight Group. This Group is being chaired by John Hennessy of the HEA, and is having its first meeting today. The Group’s members are key industry and higher education decision makers and they will work on ICT and electronic engineering programme development.

Minister Quinn spoke to MerrionStreet.ie at the launch of the report:

Read the full press release here.

The Plan is available here on the website of the Department of Education and Skills.