Mr. Adrian Cummins:

Currently, we are working in silos. We need to have one overarching organisation to look after policy for skills development in hospitality and tourism, the delivery of it and the recruitment area. We had that in the past with CERT, which was disbanded in 2003. As a person who has grown up and worked in hospitality all my life, I know the benefits of what CERT did. It had boots on the ground and knew exactly what was needed for the industry and for the pubs, restaurants, hotels, tourism facilities, adventure and so forth of the day. We need to revisit that and establish what type of system is fit for purpose, is beneficial to the taxpayer ultimately and is able to deliver so we do not get into the scenario where we are always here before a committee talking about a shortage of skilled labour. We have been talking about this since 2012 and we never got to the nub of it to ensure we have enough trainees coming into the system and enough training places around the country. We must have proper training programmes in place and the structures in place for permits, delivery and engagement with the industry to have a fit-for-purpose industry to return to pre-pandemic days. However, we were always looking for staff and we must fix that problem as soon as possible.