Mr. Phil O'Flaherty:

Unions have been active for a long time in delivering education and training, everything from hobby-type programmes all the way up to more formal programmes. Part of the issue is that union penetration in some of these sectors is quite patchy. This year, for the first time, €11 million has gone into the skills to advance initiative. Another €6.9 million allocation was announced in the recent budget. Our capacity to address this is increasing but it is still a significant story. According to the EU statistics on lifelong learning, Ireland is just above the EU average as a whole. The area in which we perform comparatively worse is people who are in employment. It is an important area to pay attention to but we must not lose focus on those who are not employed.