Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am from Buncrana in County Donegal and the reason I say that to the witnesses is that I left school when I was 14 years old and that was actually the norm in my secondary school back then. When I returned from first year to second year, half of the girls in my class had not come back for second year. They had taken up work in the local factory which was Fruit of the Loom, a textile manufacturer. Culturally, that was what people did, they left school and went out and earned money. I am 45 years old so I am not talking about the Hovis bread advertisements and all of that, I am talking about the 1980s.

I was really taken by Mr. Power's testimony because so many of the people in my generation went into factories or construction and-----