"I think people now tend to forget that we had unemployment as high as 16% at one stage. So clearly, in the past, the resources of this organisation tended to be focused on what to do to play our part in resolving that problem, " he said.

According to Molloy, the state's training and employment authority is now focusing on developing the skills of those who are already employed with projects such as this weekend's Opportunities fair at Croke Park. This was one of the organisation's original aims "which got neglected due to the attention on the huge unemployment figures.

"Upskilling is now the big challenge facing the economy, in terms of how we increase the quality and quantity of people in the workforce. The quality is a big part of that even for people who are in employment. The major challenge for us is to determine how we can ensure that people who are now in the workplace have the skills to remain in employment in the future, " he said.

"We don't want a situation to arise where because of the changing nature of employment, people who lack skills are forced into unemployment and become the new unemployed."

Molloy appears to see his agency's new role as ensuring that workers do not fall back into unemployment, and he often downplays its role in catering for the unemployed, most of whom he regards as merely being between jobs.

"There will always be churn in employment because companies will always close, no matter how strong the economy is, and new companies opening, " he said.

As a result, Fas has become much more proactive in terms of helping workers after major company closures and, according to Molloy, much of the agency's work involves developing their skills so that can find alterA native employment.

One of its largest efforts came when Greencore closed its sugar factory in Mallow last year. On that occasion, Fas set up temporary offices at the factory within two days and gave its 240 staff courses in construction industry skills, forklift driving and computing skills.

It also helped workers decided on their future career path and also provided retirement courses to workers who opted to leave the workforce.

At the moment, Fas is currently active at Motorola in Cork, where 350 employees face an uncertain future, and electronics firm FCI, which is making 240 people redundant at its plant in Fermoy, Co Cork.However, he admitted that the agency still does not do much to encourage people to set up their own businesses after such closures. "It's not our job. We do put on start your own business courses for people but the reality is that most people, particularly those in middle age who have been in employment all their lives, look for another job."

Molloy also said that there were limits to the training that Fas could provide. "We're not in the business of replacing the education sector.

So what we tend to do is to help people who have been made redundant, who have skills but whose skills aren't transferable because they are not certified."

"So what we do is we do a skills audit with them, develop a particular training programme for their needs which will be certified with FETAC or HETAC so it comes in under the national qualifications framework, " he said.

F�s operates on a "one step up" basis, where the agency will assist people in moving one level up this framework. "So that if they are at level 3, we get them to level 4, " said Molloy.

When asked whether this meant that F�s tended to ignore the need to move workers further up this ladder to diploma or degree level, Molloy strongly defended the agency's policy.

"In terms of upskilling, people often talk about the need for more PhDs and Masters degrees. That's part of it but, in any society, the majority of people in the workplace would not have PhDs or Masters degrees but the upskilling pressure is still there. The skills required to hold down what were regarded as basic jobs 20 years ago are much greater than they were then."

When aked if this approach meant that F�s was satisfied to shift unskilled unemployed people to menial jobs in a workplace such as a fast food restaurant, Molloy claimed that this ignored the personal development this could entail.

"I can understand that claim. But the answer to that is that it's very easy to dismiss flipping burgers but, if before that, you had no outlet at all and you had become totally dependent, that could be a huge leap in some people's lives, " he said.

"They are now fending for themselves.

They're holding down a job. And it may be a pathway to something else. Everybody doesn't want to be a nuclear physicist. There is a dignity issue there and, for some people, it's a major achievement to make that step."

Molloy said that some of the most pleasurable experiences of his tenure as F�s director general had come from following training projects for middle-aged people who had dropped out of school many years previously.

"They're in their forties or fifties. They dropped out of school when they were 13 or 14 and had never had any recognition from society. They've gone through a training programme, they've got a level 2 qualification and it's the first time that society has ever said to them 'you have achieved something'. The actual joy of just watching their faces is incredible.

"It's very easy for people who have university degrees to dismiss that but to those people, it's a huge achievement and they're entitled to that, " he said.

Molloy is also keen to defend F�s from the criticism levelled at it from some quarters over its refusal to provide English language training to immigrant workers, which could potentially limit their ability to integrate into the Irish workforce.

"We do not see ourselves as the body responsible for English language training. That's the department of education and the vocational education system. What we will do is we will deliver job-specific language training to people on our courses, " he said.

"We also run major programmes in all the accession states in their language saying 'if you come to Ireland, please come with a basic understanding of English'. We tell them that we know from surveys that people who have good English skills tend to be paid at the same levels of Irish workers. People who don't are paid about a third less."

Despite Molloy's comments about a new direction for F�s, some relics of its pre-celtic tiger past remain, including the community employment (CE) scheme, which still has around 25,000 participants, none of whom are counted as unemployed for statistical purposes.

"I think that the CE scheme still has a very useful role to play to help people who have become distanced from the workforce and have lost their ability to do a normal 9 to 5 job.

What it does is it allows them into a protected situation and get them back into the habit of working life, " he said.

Molloy remarked that even here, the present day issue of skills often reared its head as the numbers eligible for the scheme had fallen, with the result that community groups often now had to take on participants with lower skills.

It seems that even if Molloy fails to adapt F�s to the 21st century, the pressures of the labour market may eventually do the job for him.

CV
RODY MOLLOY
Age: 53
Family: Married to Noreen with four children - three sons, Aidan, Fergal and Cormac, and one daughter, Niamh.
Background: 2000-Present: director general of F�s; 2000-Present: Forfas board member Interests: Hurling and Gaelic Football FAS Ireland's state training and employment authority Budget: Euro1bn 2,200 employees