Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

The witnesses also mentioned the inability of smaller scale enterprises to take on apprentices or go the apprenticeship route.

I have spoken to small-scale building contractors, people providing building services or manufacturing and they are reluctant to go down route of taking on apprentices. Has any real effort been made for the sharing of the apprenticeship programme between a number of small employers? Mr. McGibney referred to the possibility of it in the contribution. Has that been tried anywhere?