Madam, – It would be a shame if criticism of the cut in funding for the Skillnets scheme faded into the background cacophony over the recession. My own sector is just one whose resurgence owes a great deal to the innovative Skillnets training and development model.
That model has two components. It is, first and foremost, “industry-led”: a sector or network that comes up with an intelligible and convincing plan for its own development will be considered for funding.
Secondly, it is based – as the name suggests – on developing co-operative networks which draw together the best of an industry’s own accumulated experience and refine and recycle it for the greater good.
When my organisation was set up in 1999, I was told by a senior official of Enterprise Ireland that his agency foresaw the “demise of the high street butcher”. We are not immune from the chill wind of current difficulties, but I couldn’t help remembering this dire prediction as I attended the opening of another new butcher’s shop last week in Dundrum. It is one of many that have opened, expanded or refitted in recent years. Not all of this revival can attributed to Skillnets, but much of it can.
One thing that can be attributed to Skillnets is our National Certificate in Butchering Skills – an innovative “on the job” qualification of the Further Education and Training Awards Council (Fetac) which currently has 120 young participants.
This is one of the cornerstones of the future development of this sector, which continues to offer consumers valuable diversity and quality food in the artisan food tradition, to say nothing of long term employment.
However, it is not fully developed and is now in danger.
This sits very uneasily with the fine rhetoric about hope and ambition that resonated through the White House on March 17th. The work of one of the most powerful and demonstrably successful instruments for economic development and recovery has been put in jeopardy. These cuts should not go ahead. – Yours, etc,