Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I too missed the start of the meeting because of the overlap with the debate in the Seanad. We have raised this with the Whips with the aim of ensuring that an education debate will not clash with a meeting of this committee on education, because it is not fair to the spokespersons, who must be in both places at the one time. I thank the witnesses for coming in today. I did not hear all of their presentations but I have them here and will go through them in due course.

The youth guarantee is being rolled out all over the country now. We want to get people back into education, further training, apprenticeships or work. Will the fees affect that and hinder people in going back to education? It is vital that they do go back to education. Local to me there is a nursing home with over 100 staff, all of whom must train to reach a standard to deal with the residents. Who pays the fee - the person who provides the course to the staff, or the company? Will this huge cost for training staff be a big hindrance to employers?