Ms Mary Rose Burke:

On the skills agenda, most of the educational institutions are members of the chambers - we have large institutions in Dublin - so there is good engagement between industry and the institutions, both at third level and further education. We engage with SOLAS and other providers of training and skills as part of their enterprises. They are all part of the chamber network. When we look at skills, it is not so much at the CAO-driven undergraduate programme - we are putting out graduates that are being employed - but more at the task-specific and digital skills. Nobody who came out of college five years ago has the digital skills needed for the coming five years. It is on-the-job training and rapid turnaround. The area that has shown some success, and where we would like to see more traction, is the apprenticeship schemes. The apprenticeship programme is industry led and sector led, where the apprenticeships are designed with major input from employers on the skill sets they want to see developed. The educators then build to those programmes. There is good engagement, but in a tight labour market, on-the-job skills training is needed, particularly in the competitive digital area.