Mr. Tony Donohoe:

I will make an initial response but ask my colleague from the medical devices sector and the polymer sector, where they have practical experience of new apprenticeships, to address the matter and maybe introduce some other issues that we have. The Chairman raises a particular concern over the hospitality sector but many of the issues in developing the apprenticeship model are peculiar to all apprenticeships. I will take hospitality first.

I look forward to coming back to the committee at the end of the month with another hat on. I chair the expert group on future skills needs, and we have been looking at hospitality. We have heard much of what the committee has heard in terms of the shortages in that sector.

It is not the first time we have heard the closure of CERT being bemoaned by the sector. I think it lacked a lead Department to take ownership of it. The expert group has done analysis of the hospitality sector and there are new implementation structures in place. I hope they will be able to address that issue. On female apprentices, that reflects the structure of the industries in which apprenticeships have traditionally existed. Some 80% of apprenticeships were in the construction sector and, because of the nature of those trades, they tended to be male dominated. In fact, there has been a change since the introduction of new apprenticeships. For example, in the insurance apprenticeship we have 100 females so we have probably more female apprentices on that one programme than in the entire history of apprenticeship in the State. As we see the expansion of the model into other sectors, we will see that gender balance issue addressed. Maybe Ms Keogh would like to talk about her own experience.