The Department for Employment and Learning

I am delighted to be Minister of a Department which contributes so powerfully to the well being of everyone in Northern Ireland--- both economically and socially.

In terms of the annual budget (spending about £ 800 million every year) this Department is the third largest.

Some of what we do has to be a reaction to the impact of the current economic downturn. Our training and employment services rapidly swung into action following the recent closure at Seagate Limavady and other recent redundancies.

At the same time, I have a very clear strategic focus to my work--- I know that if we want the economy to grow and we want more, and better paid, jobs then skills must be upgraded at all levels.

DEL has inherited a massive "remedial problem" in terms of the huge numbers of persons already in the workforce who can barely read or count (and those numbers are added to every year as thousands pass through school without acquiring the essential skills). We are committed to an active programme of lifelong and family based learning to deal with this social shame.

This year my Department began the C'Mon Over campaign. This is an attempt to target recent graduates in GB or the ROI (perhaps those who are originally from NI) with a view to persuading some to pursue a career in Northern Ireland.