Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was a teacher for 14 years, 12 of which were in a vocational school where it was promoted that kids would do woodwork, metalwork and so on. That was the culture there. I also taught in schools where that culture was not there. However, in the past few years in particular I notice that more girls are taking on those subjects in schools.

We had the president of Munster Technological University, MTU, here last week and he acknowledged that the uptake among females for apprenticeships is still quite low. How can we encourage greater female participation?