Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

I will lead with the questions regarding the approach at national level. There is work to be done under the ten-year strategy on literacy and numeracy, including digital literacy. That the Senator mentioned NALA was important. It does fantastic work and made available a large amount of online and telephone resources during the summer to keep people engaged. The ETBs also do fantastic work, but none of this will solve the literacy problem. As part of the new strategy, we need a cross-government, cross-society and cross-economy approach that involves libraries, healthcare, childcare, local authorities and digital broadband. Such an approach has been missing.

For apprenticeships, parity of esteem is critical. We need to take three actions, the first of which is embedding vocational pathways in second level schools. This means transition year taster programmes and modules from further education and training, FET, colleges being part of the senior cycle. Obviously, there is a great deal of work to be done in terms of guidance and convincing parents. We need to examine the CAO decision point and the question of how to get apprenticeships and FET on the table when parents are talking to their kids about options, given that the CAO process is wholly focused on going to a university or institute of technology.

Access for people with intellectual disabilities is an important priority. We fund an initiative through Trinity, which links with FET colleges. We will focus on this priority.