John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and ask the witnesses to forgive me absence. I was attending another committee meeting. I read the documentation circulated by IBEC and I will focus on two or three areas. I have been interested in apprenticeships for some time. If I recall correctly, IBEC was not at the forefront of the previous iteration of proposals on apprenticeship. However, I remember reading a very good proposal from SIPTU. As it was an area of great interest to me and one that should have been addressed a little earlier, particularly in the context of the crash, I was interested to read and hear IBEC's views on apprenticeships.

I will ask the witnesses a few questions and respond to some of their comments. To follow up on comments made by the Chairman, there are some very poor third level courses and they need to be called out because they do not do students any favours. I remember reading statistics which showed that college attendance was dependent on postal address. Almost 99% of students living in Dublin 6 and 6W are likely to attend third level, whereas the proportion of young people in Dublin 15 and other postal addresses who attend third level courses is much lower.

My first instinct was I could not believe that 99% of students in Dublin 6 and Dublin 6W wanted to go to third level education. IBEC has a really important role to play here. When they set up the apprenticeships commission in the UK there was a former apprentice on it, along with captains of industry and many other leading players. Their ambition and objective was to get to a point where every parent would consider an apprenticeship for their child. They may not actively engage in it, but parents would consider it as an option. We need to get to that point. When I was in school a quarter of my class left after the old intermediate certificate to do apprenticeships, and they were the ones who succeeded.

We must not just look to Government for this. IBEC and business have a huge role to play in terms of bringing about a really big and significant culture change. It ought to be possible that if people engage in an apprenticeship they can end up gainfully employed and trained. Equally, if they so desire - as in Germany - they could end up being a PhD in that particular area of training if they are ambitious in that way. Therefore, we need a dual system that allows somebody to move forwards and backwards in the education system. We do not have it now.

In Denmark, 45% of apprentices are female. Apprentices account for 11% of their working population. One key thing is that in Denmark one can qualify to become an apprentice at any age between 18 and 60. Therefore, the opportunities for retraining are huge.

Mr. O'Brien mentioned the national training fund in that regard and also in regard to third-level fees, which I thought was interesting. I would like to probe that further. What does Mr. O'Brien think IBEC can usefully do to begin championing it? I know we have broadened the base but in Denmark there is a range of 250 apprenticeship programmes, so we are still narrow. They do everything from hairdressing to fitness, right through to sheet-metal working and tourism. What can IBEC do practically to bring about a culture change on this? It is not just a policy change.