Business leader issues warning on skills deficit

Ireland must act immediately to avoid "running into a brick wall" within 18 months because of skills shortages in the technology industry. The warning comes from Dr Chris Horn who has been appointed to head a new joint business/education forum which is being set up as part of the Government's £250 million funding programme for technology education.

Dr Horn told The Irish Times that the most productive approach to finding solutions would be to solicit an input from across the industrial and educational sectors.

The Education Technology Investment fund to help educational institutions deal with computer, electronics and other skills shortages over the next three years is the largest single investment in technological education since the foundation of the State.

The group lead by Dr Horn, chief executive of Iona Technologies, one of Ireland's most successful software companies, has been charged with the task of monitoring and forecasting continuing and emerging skills shortages.

Dr Horn said they would need to be as creative as possible. "This is not simply a national problem, but a global one, though I don't feel it has reached critical proportions just yet," he added.

One suggested solution might be private contributions from industry to education.

Dr Horn said: "While any additional funding is desirable, private funding can be very difficult to synthesise. A disharmony can emerge if several employers decide to co-sponsor a course, and each one wants the syllabus to take a different direction. We will have to look at that option very closely."

Staffing problems in the technology sector have emerged in the last 18 months as a result of the boom in job creation by high-technology companies here.

According to Dr Horn, "gentle discussions" between the industry and the Government have highlighted the problem.

A recent survey showed that 70 per cent of companies were having difficulty recruiting staff with an information technology background, while 80 per cent said they planned to increase their information technology workforce over the next year. Dr Horn now sees his role as one of "appraising and co-ordinating all input to the forum, with the final objective of finding a pragmatic, long-term solution to the skills shortages problem".