Minister confirms revised reconfiguration of VECs

The Government has approved a revised reconfiguration of the Vocational Education Committees (VEC) system, reducing the total number of VECs from 33 to 16, it was announced today.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said he was “pressing ahead” with restructuring the VEC system, first announced by his predecessor Mary Coughlan in October last.

Today’s decision confirms that the number of VECs will be reduced to 16 but involves different mergers to those previously announced.

It has been criticised by the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA), the representative body for Ireland’s VECs, which had argued for a minimum of 20 VECs with two counties combined at most.

Minister Quinn said that while “considerable weight” had been given to the IVEA submission, he believed the set of mergers approved by the Government today to be appropriate.

Minister Quinn also indicated that legislation to bring about the changes was being prepared and that it would involve the consolidation of the provisions of the existing nine Vocational Acts into one new bill.

“IVEA does acknowledge that some of the VEC combinations make more sense than what was proposed by the previous government,” said IVEA General Secretary Michael Moriarty.

“Unfortunately the Minister has not altered the number of new VEC entities and this is a gravely disappointing outcome for us.”

The 16 revised VEC areas are as follows:

- City of Dublin

- City of Cork and Co. Cork

- Co. Dublin and Dun Laoghaire

- City of Limerick, Co. Limerick and Co. Clare

- Co. Donegal

- Co. Kerry

- Co. Tipperary North and South

- City of Waterford, Co. Waterford and Co. Wexford

- City of Galway, Co. Galway and Co. Roscommon

- Co. Mayo, Co. Sligo and Co. Leitrim

- Co. Cavan and Co. Monaghan

- Co. Louth and Co. Meath

- Co. Longford and Co. Westmeath

- Co. Laois and Co. Offaly

- Co. Kildare and Co. Wicklow

- Co. Kilkenny and Co. Carlow