Call for National Training Fund not to be redeployed

Chambers Ireland today called for the National Training Fund to continue its focus on those in employment, against a backdrop of rising unemployment figures and calls for drastic measures to shorten dole queues.

Pointing to some positive signals from the export sector, the organisation, which represents some 13,000 businesses on the island of Ireland, said training for those in employment would "support efforts to enhance and sustain a more productive and cost competitive economy for future growth".

“The latest forecasts show that Irish exports are projected to decline significantly less than in other developed economies," said Chambers Ireland chief executive Ian Talbot.

"We need to reinforce this positive news through a continued effort to support the productive, tax generating sectors of this economy as they seek to cut costs, sustain employment, survive and position themselves for the upturn when it eventually comes.”

The National Training Fund was established under the National Training Fund Act, 2000, as a dedicated fund to finance a range of employee training schemes.

The Fund is resourced by a levy on employers.

“Those who are unemployed need to be supported as they re-skill," Talbot continued.

"However diverting an excess of scarce resources from those currently in employment to those who are not, will be a retrograde step that undermines the principle driver of the National Training Fund—a fund that is paid for by employers via a levy on all salaries.

"Not using the fund for the purposes that it was established simply turns it in to another tax on business,” he continued.