Mr. Jimmy Deenihan:

Female participation there is very low. It is nearly invisible. As TUs develop, we must encourage greater female participation. There are certain programmes and craft apprenticeships that would be more suitable for girls than others. Of the range of available apprenticeship opportunities, some are probably more saleable than others. However, due to EDI and so on, it should be a focus of TUs to encourage females to pursue apprenticeships more. As Ms Feehily and Dr. Prendergast set out, there is a range of apprenticeships into which they can go and some of the apprenticeship programmes would be attractive, perhaps apart from the more physical ones.

That said, I have seen women in those areas and they have done well.