Ms Hanna Mathe:

I thank the committee for inviting us. It is a huge honour, especially considering that we were 17 men and four women going to Russia for the competition. I was grateful to have the opportunity to be one of them. I can only speak for my own skill and I believe there are a couple of things that need to be addressed in terms of cookery nationwide - worldwide is a whole other conversation - especially for women.

I did not decide to go into cookery. I finished the leaving certificate and took a year out as I was not really sure what I wanted to do. I stumbled upon the four-year bachelor of arts honours course in Waterford Institute of Technology. I was attracted to that course because the third year is done abroad. I have just come back from that. I was placed in a one-Michelin starred restaurant in Budapest, and then at the Institut Paul Bocuse in France. I do not know if any member is familiar with it. I believe that one of the major issues in the industry that scares women off - and men as well - is the toxicity of the long hours and the fact that we will always work on those occasions other people are off. That is a whole other conversation and is something that needs to change within the job itself. Women are put off the industry when they see that working kitchens generally are made up of 80% men and 20% women, and I saw this even in Budapest and France. Head chefs and sous chefs are mostly men. A woman has to go into a kitchen and doubly prove herself. If a woman in a working kitchen asks anyone else to lift a heavy bag that she cannot, she will be looked down upon. It is extremely unfair.

Apprenticeships were not encouraged. My parents were not aware of the job I was going into but were very supportive. Ireland had not put forward competitors for the cookery element of the competition in a very long time so I am the first one to go in eight years. Ireland is a lot better than what we are putting forward. More funding could go towards cookery and towards publicising and advertising the fact that there are good restaurants in the country. Our food is some of the best in Europe and we should be showcasing that by sending more cookery competitors over there. I must also say a major "Thank you" to Alan McCabe - who is not here today - who was my mentor.

Another issue I have seen relates to training for cookery. Institutes of technology are mostly the institutions that provide cookery training. I mostly had people from other institutes of technology who came to train me, which was incredible, but younger members of the industry need to be involved too.

People who are out working in industry need to be called on to work together with the institutes of technology to train the competitors. Having been over there, competitors need to be warned about the vast numbers of people who will be there. There were 46 competitors in my skill. I observed the skill sets and the experience they had. We could put more training into Irish competitors to compete against them. We are well able for it. This is something that should definitely be done. More encouragement should be given to women to go into kitchens. I have absolutely no idea how we can make it easier for them, but I think we could be doing much better.