Comments by Minister Ahern at Engineers Ireland CPD Company of Year Award Ceremony

Boston Scientific wins top engineering accolade

Minister for Trade and Commerce Michael Ahern, T.D.,today presented Boston Scientific Ireland Limited, Galway with the Engineers Ireland Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Company of the Year Award at a ceremony in the Radisson Hotel SAS, Dublin 4.

Speaking at the awards Minister Ahern said: “I would like to congratulate Boston Scientific, the winner of this year’s award which one of engineering’s top accolades. I know that this company is a major employer of engineers in Ireland and that it has a record of excellence in corporate professional development practices. As a consequence it has been able to anticipate and adapt to changes and developments in the business environment, as well as providing employment and contributing to national economic progress.

I also want to congratulate all those companies, whose accreditation we mark today on the standards of excellence they have achieved and on their commitment to professional development in their respective businesses.

It is appropriate that Engineers Ireland, as Ireland’s largest representative professional organisation with some 22,000 individual members, should be to the forefront in promoting this award to recognise excellence in continuing professional development practices that provide clear business benefits to participating companies.

It is appropriate also that, as an organisation with a particular focus on the development of professional human resources, you are actively encouraging and facilitating engineers to commit to lifelong learning in order to keep abreast of change and progress.

The Continuing Professional Development programme supports such learning by emphasising good business and organisational practices in the professional development of engineers and technical staff. The importance of lifelong learning for engineers is now central to the mission of Engineers Ireland. In this respect it is reflective of Government policy that seeks to advance the primacy of life-long learning in a knowledge-based and high value-added economy.

The Company of the Year Award promotes and profiles the personnel and business benefits that accrue to accredited organisations through their active fostering and implementation of policies for continuing professional development.

The Engineers Ireland CPD Programme is being supported by my Department through significant financial assistance from the National Training Fund (NTF). It is a good example of an innovative and purposeful investment being supported through the NTF. Clear and demanding targets are set jointly by Engineers Ireland and my Department, and these are consistently being met. At present 57 engineering companies are accredited to the professional development programme, and 258 companies have signed protocols of engagement.

The need to implement additional programmes of support for continuing professional development, and for enhancing the qualification levels of engineers and technicians, is one of the key recommendations in the recent report - Engineering - Knowledge Island 2020 - that was advanced by Engineers Ireland and the Irish Academy of Engineers. It has been presented to Government Departments and will inform public policy on education, life-long learning, qualifications development and catering for the skill needs of the future.

Irish companies invest only about 2% of turnover in manpower training. The larger and, particularly, the foreign-owned enterprises outstrip the performance of indigenous companies in that regard. That situation is not sustainable in the longer, or even in the medium, term.

International research and practice suggests that investment in training of the order of 5% of turnover is a benchmark that should be achieved to underpin general economic and social progress.

The Government is playing its part to redress this deficiency. However, a lot more could be done by private companies. The approach of Engineers Ireland incorporates a commitment and sophistication in the development of human resources that might well be emulated by others.

That approach fits well with the realisation that change and development dictate that learning throughout working life is now a prerequisite not only to success but, increasingly, to business survival. I know that your continuing professional development initiative for engineering professionals and technicians has been extended to cover both the private and public sectors. This is in the mutual interests of both.

In addition, the best practice-sharing element of the initiative, which sources and applies the highest engineering standards operational in international companies, is an approach and a model that indigenous companies in other areas of economic activity could beneficially examine and apply.

The report of the Enterprise Strategy Group – Ahead of the Curve – refocused attention on the need for lifelong learning and for the continual assessment and enhancement of qualifications and labour market skills. It cited research undertaken by the International Labour Organisation and the OECD that estimates that 80% of the global work force of 2015 is already in the labour force. The Enterprise Strategy Group also forecasts a decline in the numbers entering employment in this country over the period and the consequential need to enhance the skills of the existing labour force through continual training and retraining.

In this regard, I would like to remind employers of the additional publicly funded schemes that the Government has introduced to further encourage in-company training and development. I would encourage firms to take advantage of these programmes so that the generous public budgets that are available are used in ways that effectively impact on upskilling workers at all levels.

If they are so used it can only be good for promoting us in the national productivity and competitiveness tables that in turn influence further investment and economic and employment growth levels.

As Minister with responsibility for trade and commence, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to be here this morning. My Department has a very good relationship with Engineers Ireland. That is because you also have the same attitude to commitment, professionalism, development and progress as the accredited companies whose achievement we now mark.

Finally I would like to thank Anne Butler, President, Engineers Ireland, and her team for inviting me here this morning. I would also like to thank the chairperson and members of the judging panel who had the difficult task of choosing the winner for the CPD Company of the Year Award.

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