Mr. Joe O'Connor:

I will make two brief points, one on JobBridge and one on apprenticeships. On the former, the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, called on the then Minister for education, Batt O'Keeffe, for a national internship scheme in 2010. JobBridge was subsequently introduced. It is important to clarify that, while the scheme is imperfect, it has done much good for many young people.

I will revert to my previous point, as some members of the committee probably want me to clarify further. An internship, by its nature, should be intern focused. When I think of an internship, I think of something that provides real learning opportunities and career advancement potential for the intern. The bad type of internship, some of which we have seen in JobBridge, is the idea that it is a cheap way of getting work done for the employer. A bad example in recent years saw the job of stacking shelves in Tesco being included in JobBridge. The idea was to dress it up as a busy, customer-focused work environment, but such a job has no place on an internship scheme. It could be argued that a one-off Government tender that advertises itself as providing learning outcomes in the practical installation of water meters may not provide a significant number of future job opportunities for an internship. It is a question of into which category the role fits.

An apprenticeship review is being undertaken by the Department of Education and Skills. Work-based learning needs to form a crucial part of the youth guarantee. Apart from a small number of sectors, Ireland does not do apprenticeships particularly well or place sufficient emphasis on them.

I will highlight a point that may have been missed in the overall budgetary argument. Although we are having this conversation, we need to focus more on apprenticeship work-based learning. The budget has provided a mechanism under which people engaging in FÁS apprenticeships, which were previously State-funded, must now make pro rata contributions. This sends a mixed message about the direction we want to take. The question of whether we want added investment or less investment must be answered.