Mr. Ciarán Nugent:

My own stream of research at the moment is looking at mismatch in the economy with skills with the working age population and what is available and what is demanded in the economy. I have found that Ireland has had a particularly high expansion of third level education over the last generation but on the labour market side our performance is one of the worst in Europe in terms of overqualified graduates. There is a conversation to be had about whether this is an effective strategy and whether we are missing out on potential gains, for example, lowering the cost of housing and construction. Fewer people are going into apprenticeships and middle-skilled occupations, which used to have higher wages and better living standards associated with them. There is a rebalancing conversation to be had there on sending excessive numbers of school leavers to university.