The horticulture industry was worth an estimated €566 million in 2023. The industry covers a broad and diverse range, including mushrooms, potatoes, field crops, protected fruit and vegetables, outdoor soft and top fruit, hardy nursery stock, protected crops, Christmas trees, cut foliage, outdoor flowers, bulbs and turf grass. However, Ireland imports approximately 85% of our fruit and vegetables and possibly over 60% of our other plants needlessly at some risk to our country considering the potential impact of importing deadly pests and diseases. Recent examples have been ash dieback and sudden oak death, which are causing havoc in our rural and urban landscapes, forestry, wood and our woodland industries.

Being such a vital industry with such prospects, why is it not growing? Considering that we import so much, why have the Government and previous Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments done little or nothing to protect the industry? Possibly the most important element to the industry is its people. Operatives, managers and entrepreneurs are the heart of horticulture, as with most industries. Attracting people to industries of vital national importance is surely part of a government's remit. However, our education system fills courses with students who may never find work in the areas they are studying. Industries like horticulture are stagnating without new Irish people to lead them, with the numbers of students in horticulture nationally in a steady decline.

Would the Taoiseach agree that industry is only as good as the people who lead it? Would he agree that the better equipped those people are with, for example, education, the better the chance they will have to innovate and grow the industry, providing jobs, tax revenue and solutions to vital food and biodiversity security, and reducing carbon miles? What are the Government's plans for the horticulture industry and horticulture education nationally?

Not so long ago I brought to the Taoiseach's attention in this House the case of a vital level 5 ETB horticulture course in Skibbereen that Cork ETB plans to discontinue. However, that course has more applicants than is normal for this time of year - it gets most applicants in August and September. The ETB claims not to have viable numbers after sending people away from doing the course, even though people want to do it. One wonders why. Is it rationalisation or perhaps making life easy for administrators? What can be more important than the sustainability and viability of our country? At a time when vital sustainable industries that can help reduce climate change impacts are so needed, why are we shutting down vital horticultural courses? The industry is crying out for people.

Is there anyone at the helm of the ship on education and the direction of the industries of this country? Even other Departments are investigating education in horticulture at present, as it is affecting the potential of the industry. Can career guidance in secondary schools be used to explain how important the industry is? Can horticulture be prioritised as a vital sector to fast-track industry development and replace carbon costly imports? Can the Taoiseach see to it that proper investment will be made in promoting and supporting horticulture education in Ireland and that the level 5 course in horticulture in Skibbereen will be reinstated with immediate effect?

I thank Deputy Collins for raising this important matter. I note he raised the issue of the horticulture course in Skibbereen with me previously in this House. I have done a bit of research, on which I will engage with him in a moment. There is huge importance in investing in talent and in our people. We need to have an education system that has multiple pathways for people to reach their full potential. For some people that will be university. For some people that will be our education and training boards. For some people it will be a combination of both. For some people it will be in-work training. For some people it will be the apprenticeship or traineeship model. There was a rigidity to our education system in years gone by, which we need to challenge. I think there is a political consensus on that.

I was honoured to be the first Minister for further and higher education. There was a lot of work going on in that space and it is a very can-do sector. I agree with the Deputy on that. I also agree with him on the importance of horticulture. His diagnosis of the challenge is right. We need to be able to do a hell of a lot more in this country because it makes sense from a variety of areas economically but also from the point of view of the green agenda, climate change and sustainability. All the figures will show the Deputy that we are absolutely expanding the number of education courses across the country. We are expanding the funding to ETBs and the number of people going. All these things are beyond dispute and beyond question. I can produce any amount of data to show that the third level sector is growing in every dimension.

However, the Deputy is right that there seems to be a particular issue with this horticulture course. I would be happy to engage further on this. I made inquiries and my note tells me something different from what the Deputy outlined, as he may not be surprised to hear. I will share with him what I have been told.

The Department of further and higher education made inquiries with Cork Education and Training Board and I was told that the ETB has decided to remove its offering of the course for the academic year 2024-25 as it is not considered to be viable based on the low level of applications to date. The horticulture post-leaving certificate level 5 course offered in Skibbereen under the auspices of the Morrison's Island campus of the Cork College of Further Education and Training has seen enrolments and course completions fall consistently over the past number of years. The ETB tells me it needs to have a level of demand for any course to determine its schedule of courses and to make the most effective use of its college. It is saying it does not currently believe there is a level sufficient to support a class group and it is therefore not possible for any provider, including the ETB, to meet that demand. The Deputy is giving me different data, which I am not disputing. I am happy to see that and for my office to engage directly with Cork ETB. There can only be one set of figures. There cannot be two versions of the truth.

On the horticulture sector more broadly, there is now a horticultural apprenticeship programme that has recently been developed for the first time, with Teagasc. This is an important part of what the Deputy rightly asks about how we encourage more people to come into horticulture. It is by providing apprenticeship routes and pathways. The point the Deputy makes about promoting horticulture as a career is something I am happy to talk about with our agencies and revert to the Deputy in writing.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. He says we may have different data and that is maybe something we can engage on. I look forward to engaging with him on this issue. However, he should remember one thing. The course deadline for applicants is September. A decision seems to have been made between March and June by the ETB, with little or no consultation with the people on the ground. How can it make a decision on how many people are going? People are contacting me saying they are interested and they are sorry when they see on social media that it is closing. They then contact local media. There is an issue here. The ETB made a decision at an early stage to pull this, and it is not giving that opportunity. Remember, it is Skibbereen. We can talk about Morrison's Island. If you talk to people in Castletownbere, on the Beara Peninsula or the Sheep's Head Peninsula, and in Skibbereen, Bantry and the surrounds, and ask young people to go to Cork city every day to do a course, you note they cannot afford to do that. It is a crazy situation. The ETB is closing the course quite simply because of its geographical position. That is why it is closing it. Everyone on the ground in west Cork will tell you that. It has been allowed to make that decision. I got on to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, who has come back to me with the ETB spin. I do not want the ETB spin; I want the human spin. There is a horticultural course that was available to people in Skibbereen that will be closed down. Will the Taoiseach intervene and make sure that does not happen?

I will certainly undertake to look into it because I know a little about it from my time in that Department. I was down in the Cork College of Further Education and Training and made aware of the horticultural course. I am trying to remember if I visited the actual facility in Skibbereen. I am not sure. I could have, because I was involved in a number of discussions about horticulture in Cork and I know there was a general level of excitement about the education and training programmes which saw a benefit to the regional and local economy.

In the first instance, I will relay the Deputy's concerns to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, and ask that he re-engage with Cork ETB on this. I will put to the ETB the Deputy's view that the decision is premature and there is more interest coming than it perhaps knows. Let us ascertain that and see if that is borne out. I could also maybe ask the regional skills forums for the south-west region to have a look at course provision. I am conscious, when we talk about Cork in Dublin, that it is a big county. I am conscious that the idea of asking somebody to move from west Cork to Cork city is not viable. Let me take a further look at it and come back to the Deputy.