The adult-education sector is cock-a-hoop about the recently launched National Development Plan for the years 2000 to 2006. The huge expenditure planned for the sector means that the value of adult education is being taken seriously in Government circles.

"At last, and not before time, they're putting investment into adult education," says Berni Brady, director of adult-ed organisation AONTAS. "I have to congratulate Willie O'Dea." O'Dea is Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science with special responsibility for adult education. "He really fought his corner on this."

Brady describes herself as "amazed" by the £73.8 million that is being invested in adult-literacy initiatives. The 1995 International Adult Literacy Survey, published by the OECD in 1997, caused considerable embarrassment when it revealed extremely low levels of literacy among Irish adults. Back-to-education and training initiatives are of little use to people with poor reading, writing and mathematical skills.

According to the Department of Education and Science, the National Adult Literacy Strategy "will provide an integrated service to support access to employment, a return to lifelong learning or empower participants with the basic skills needed to participate in the social and economic life of their communities".

The strategy includes intensive programmes targeted at the most needy, family-learning programmes, the use of open-learning centres and delivery by distance learning methods, including via TV and radio. A major problem in offering educational opportunities to the most marginalised sections of society is that this group is the least likely to avail of them. One of the issues to be decided on is the offering of incentives to encourage people to embark on literacy programmes.

Precedents do exist - the £25 bonus paid to the long-term unemployed who are participating in FAS and VTOS programmes, for example. With 51 per cent of the short-term unemployed and three-quarters of the long-term unemployed having had an education, which, at best, terminates at Junior Cert level, the £1.027 billion allocated to back-to-education initiatives is much needed. "The expansion of VTOS and the extra provision for childcare is really important," Brady observes. There are up to 64,000 women in the home, with no more than Junior Cert qualifications, who have the potential to return first to education programmes and then to work. They represent a huge untapped resource, she says.

While the mainstreaming of the adult-guidance pilot programme is welcome, there is concern that it may be limited to people enrolled on further-education programmes and the unemployed. Early intervention is essential to enable people to make the right choices about courses.

Brady argues for a national adult-guidance service, open to all adults. "Women in the home and long-term unemployed men need a lot of support. A lot of people aren't ready to return to work," she says. "We will be lobbying to ensure that some of this funding is spent in broadening the adult-education guidance service."

The £1.624 billion investment in education and training infrastructure also gets the thumbs up from AONTAS. Further education centres, along with schools, third-level institutions and FAS centres, are the beneficiaries here. The community sector looks set to gain.

"This is significant," Brady notes. "Expenditure on premises is a huge issue in the non-formal education sector." Locally based adult-education organisers are vital. "We need a lot more people on the ground," Brady asserts. "We would like to see the locally-based adult education organiser becoming the co-ordinator of a team of workers, who are there to deliver on the area-based plan drawn up by the new adult learning board. "If they invest in human resources on the ground, they can use the money well. If money is simply thrown at groups which are not ready, then it will not be used effectively."

Of the disadvantaged groups targeted by the National Plan, long-term unemployed men are the most difficult to attract back to education. The Educational Disadvantage Measure, which has been awarded an investment of £3.5 million, will expand on the Women's Education Initiative and focus on the needs of both women and educationally disadvantaged men.

Among the aims of this project is the provision for accreditation and partnership between statutory and voluntary agencies. "Accreditation "is crucial for the non-formal sector," Brady says. Vital, too, she notes, is a place on the proposed National Qualifications Authority for a community and voluntary sector representative.