Mr. Alan Nuzum:

We would never charge jobseekers for anything, but if they are not eligible we cannot support them. Blasting the word "free" across everything does create the impression that it is free to everyone, no matter what, whereas there is a lot of small print and there are also hurdles to overcome.

As regards conversion courses in languages, this is a particular hobby-horse of mine in terms of trying to address this matter, particularly given the amount of penetration we have with the contact centre industry where we are very active.

Some programmes are starting to emerge that I have been pushing in collaboration with the industry. The basic idea is a boot camp-type approach. Many of the jobs that are available require native tongue language skills and there is no point in us trying to address that gap. A significant number of the jobs available in the area, in particular on the technical support side, require the ability to converse in a particular language across a narrow lexicon of terms. A particular part of the language is relevant to particular jobs. We are looking at ways to take Irish workers who have some degree of proficiency in a language and accelerate them over a short period in a workplace situation. To date, the progress has been slow but a couple of initiatives are bubbling away and I will let the committee know when they come to fruition.