Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise as I was at another meeting, which Deputy Feighan referred to, in connection with the work of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. It is good to see Paul Gavan back in the Oireachtas. He contributed well as a Member of the Upper House over the years and did very good work. I think one of the items Mr. Friel mentioned was travel to training centres. I represent counties Cavan and Monaghan and traditionally we do not have that big population base. Often we are caught between Dundalk, Sligo and Athlone. At times, when you do not have a centre close to you, you can lose out. In the context of travel to further or higher education, we rightly talk about access. We need better access for more people, particularly people from less well-off households. Often, however, access is about distance as well. Sometimes people form the view that something is not for them because it is far away or whatever. I know we cannot have a training centre in every county, but in the witnesses’ experience, is there a good enough spread of training centres with the new educational training board model and the new SOLAS model? Has that improved the spread of centres throughout the country? It is an issue we need to be cognisant of with regard to having relatively easy access because travel, as was mentioned, is a costly item nowadays and if a person has to get accommodation, that adds an extra burden.

In an earlier discussion on apprenticeships, reference was made to Youthreach centres. Are those sectors being targeted fairly robustly, although not aggressively, with a vigorous and proactive approach to ensure young people who graduate from the Youthreach centres may go on to apprenticeships? In Cavan Institute, we have an access officer who liaises with the local Youthreach centre and champions those students leaving Youthreach who want to go on to further education. It facilitates the pathway for those people into further education and on to higher education too. Are there enough apprentices coming from our Youthreach centres? Bear in mind, as we all know, the Youthreach centres are second-chance education. They have never been given the credit they deserve. Our Cathaoirleach did excellent work for Youthreach centres in the past. I know many of the students in counties Cavan and Monaghan who benefitted from the work of Deputy McGreehan when she worked in Youthreach centres. It is an area we need to ensure there is a good focus on. There is a huge amount of potential in those centres for people may not have been given great encouragement at home or elsewhere to pursue education, a trade or a skill.