Ms Roisin Doherty:

There are further education programmes available all year round and all of the time and it is just a matter of contacting one’s local education and training board, ETB. There is a diversity of different programmes. Some young people may not want to sit in classrooms all of the time and may want to do something such as working with horses, with beauty or with engineering. That host of different options is available. ETBs also have enterprise engagement officers who link with all of the local companies. It is a question of using that link also to ensure that every opportunity is availed of.

There is also the linking with the 750 placement officers who are available in the Department of Social Protection who are linking in, again, at local level with employers and getting a net together at local level to ensure that, in particular, it is working. To answer the Chairman’s question, there is summer programme provision available all the year round in various different programmes and we very much welcome that.