Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

The SOLAS skills and labour market research unit, SLMRU, plays a big role in identifying skills needs; the national skills bulletin should be coming up in the next couple of weeks and we will send it on to the committee. Mr. Donohoe mentioned that the issues are more occupational. Construction is the other big sector where the issue crosses several trades and there are shortages all over the place including engineering.

A couple of people made a point about the value of apprenticeships and asked whether we are getting that across accurately. One side of that is to ramp up promotion. On the other side we see a lot of analysis of the graduate premium; if a person goes to college and gets a degree they earn x amount over a lifetime. We have not done enough of that on the value of apprenticeship where there is a significant premium for anyone undertaking that training and going on to earn money. That is something we are actively working on. We are doing an impact evaluation of Kerry Education and Training Board that will track what happens to apprenticeships, trainees and people who have gone through a post-leaving certificate course where there is an immediate premium in terms of securing employment. It is on our agenda to reinforce that marketing effort.