Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes, they ended up doing the churn.

My sense of this is that there is a lack of awareness, particularly around those who left school and went into trades. There is the famous stereotype about them not being academically intelligent and that the system was not suited to them but maybe they had vocational intelligence on the job. I strongly feel that our society does not value those skills as much as academic skills and that our system is skewed in that respect.

I am interested to hear the witnesses speak about how we can target sections of the economy and promote people changing career and going on a path that they would have taken if that opportunity had come along. I am visualising so many people from my community who would have liked to have had a career change and to find job satisfaction. I am very taken by Mr. Power's testimony in light of my life experience. I commend him - and not in a patronising way - on the financial sacrifice he made for a number of years, which is not easy but now he is on a path that in the long term will give him true job satisfaction and happiness. It is a powerful testimony to share with other people out there who might go down the same road.