Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This issue of stigma around apprenticeships has been discussed before here. I asked the two lads about their research and I will come back to them shortly. There is no doubt that there is a stigma. That is my own view and some of the witnesses who have been before the committee would say, and I have used the word, that apprenticeships are not sexy. However, I can say, once a person goes through an apprenticeship, he or she can often earn an awful lot more than people who have done a three- or four-year college course. That has come though here over recent weeks. If the witnesses were to give advice to some of their peers who are 16 or 17 years old, of if they were speaking to a fifth- or sixth-year class where people were considering doing apprenticeships, what advice would they give to them? That might be a difficult question.