Ms Bríd O'Brien:

There is quite a bit going on. Our organisation runs two local training initiatives and the target group is people who are long-term unemployed and distanced from the labour market. I have been struck by some people who left school early, may have had addiction issues and, in their late 30s, secured their first job or moved on to further or higher education and training. We are not alone in doing that work. There is a lot happening in community organisations and communities. There is provision through further education and training providers and ETBs. Some of it is around ensuring there is good understanding in the wider labour market of what people do through community education, the skills they pick up, the learning they get and what the different levels of QQI mean. If people have been through it themselves, they have an understanding, but for those who have done their leaving certificate and gone on to college or into employment, I am not sure there is a good enough grasp of the alternative routes in the wider community. That can impact when people try to progress from some training and education opportunities into the wider labour market. There is a body of work to be done to ensure there is good appreciation of that, particularly when people do courses that are very relevant to job opportunities out there.

To make sure we get that message out is important.

For people who have been out of the labour market, who are quite isolated because of where they live or who have lost confidence because they feel they do not have the resources and have not been out and about, community education opportunities can be great, if even just to help people to start to build those skills again and start to get out into the wider world and progress from that.