Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

I think so. The current arrangements are around carpentry and joinery and electrical. Like a lot of these things, getting it off the ground is the hard part. Once you have got proof of concept and proof that the Northern Ireland colleges have the capability, understanding, curriculum, resources and the workshop space to be able to do this, I do not see any reason why it could not continue to be offered. As it is an emergency response to eliminate that need for anyone to wait more than six months for craft apprenticeship training, we are very grateful to our colleagues in the regional colleges. As we now have a model agreed and a model that is due to be operational in April of this year, I do not see any reason they could not continue to play a part in meeting craft apprenticeship capacity requirements moving forward. Maybe we need to start thinking of those requirements on an all-island basis to make sure that we maximise the use of facilities and our capacities across the entire island.