Government support for workforce training represents “a very poor return” for employers who fund it, business representative organisations have told members of an Oireachtas committee.
Neil McDonnell of small firms group Isme told the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science “a radical and concentrated focus on the skills of SME workers, managers and owners in indigenous enterprise” is necessary if the Department of Enterprise is to achieve its stated priorities of driving “competitiveness, sustainability, innovation, productivity and inward investment” over the next three years.
He said that while Government overall spending and the Department of Further Education’s budget had both increased substantially over the last five years, the scale of the spend on workforce training had not come close to keeping pace and had actually declined by 2 per cent in the past year.
He said Skillnet Ireland, which supports training and upskilling programmes through a system of more than 70 business networks, had suggested the budget for such programmes would grow to €100 million over that five year period but was instead €54.2 million for this year, down 16 per cent on 2025.
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“This is an extremely poor return for the employers who fund the National Training Fund (NTF),” he said, and “signals an absence of seriousness in indigenous skills strategy”. The NTF is administered by the department and supports a number of training initiatives.
Meadhbh Costello, business group Ibec’s senior executive for education, skills and innovation policy, said the NTF is projected to have a €3 billion surplus by 2030 but a majority of companies are struggling to address critical skills shortages within their organisations.
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“Labour shortages and skills gaps are no longer marginal concerns. They represent a big systemic challenge for every business attempting to navigate this turbulent landscape,” she said.
“The economic viability of both individual enterprises and the broader Irish economy depends on the speed and effectiveness with which these strategic skills deficits are addressed.
“Companies across Ireland urgently need support to upskill and re skill their workers, or they risk being left behind in the digital and green transitions. The substantial surplus in the National Training Fund presents a once in a generation opportunity to shift the dial on lifelong learning and workforce development,” she said.
“However, there is a big concern among employers that this fund is not adequately resourcing workforce development, despite this being its founding principle”.
She said there was concern too about the fund being used in other areas of education while shortfalls in Skillnet funding, which generates matching funds from employers, meant “millions of euro in private investment already committed by businesses are being left on the table”.
Adam Weatherley, learning and development manager with Isme, said the type of training being sought by smaller and micro enterprises was routinely very different from what was required by the multinationals or bigger indigenous enterprises who might be more likely to benefit from supports provided to universities. To those who needed it more nuts and bolts training, though, it was absolutely vital, he said.
“It’s not rocket science they’re looking for,” he said. “They want something that’s going to provide them with the skills to do something easier, something quicker, something better.”
He said the two most sought-after courses run by Isme involve training on Microsoft’s Office suite of products and the provision of what he described as HR essentials.
The organisation, he said, had adapted the way they delivered these and other courses due to Covid, making them more accessible and less expensive and had seen a significant increase in demand.
“So we put in a very ambitious application for three more years of funding in October last year, only to flat line, which is really a reduction, because we are absorbing a significant increase in costs, whether training costs, rooms hire, facilities.
“And we’ve been told that there’s no further funding available between 2026 and 2028 and yet, the National Training Fund is in significant surplus.”
