Training decision a matter of urgency

THE incoming Government must make decisions about training more electronics graduates within a month, or face missing another academic year and risk squandering the Republic's advantage in attracting investment in the sector, according to the head of IBM Ireland.

IBM, which plans to employ more than 5,000 people in Ireland by the year 2001, warned that the demand for skills in the information technology sector was increasing rapidly and said urgent, co-ordinated action and investment was needed if the country was not to run out of qualified graduates.

Speaking at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the managing director of IBM Ireland, Mr William Burgess, said that, by global standards, the Republic was not a low-cost investment environment.

The biggest advantage Ireland had, he said, was a flexible, motivated, well-educated, young workforce with a strong work ethic and a "can-do" attitude.

But there were already signs that increasing competition by companies for the high-tech skills available was causing wage inflation.

If nothing was done, he said, Ireland would lose its competitive edge.

"The Government has already announced initiatives for 1,000 additional third level places for software engineers and also an additional 750 technician places. However, as yet, there is no decision as to whom is to provide these places and when," he said.

Another primary area of competitiveness, he said, was workforce flexibility, and the Government should ensure that any European Union directives, such as the Working Time Bill, were negotiated and implemented to give industry as much flexibility as possible.

"If we learn from the mistakes that other countries have made when at a similar stage in their development," he added, "we really do have the opportunity to bequeath to coming generations of young Irish people great wealth and prosperity, and thus create an era that could well go down in history as another golden age for Ireland."