Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

I am happy to share some of the material that we have worked on through the Apprenticeship Council. At its core, we need to recognise we have taken a significant first step in terms of the new model. In terms of where we were five years ago, we now have a great opportunity.

On the Chairman's point about the perception, awareness and the brand of apprenticeships, there is quite a journey to go. We need to continue to showcase those success stories and showcase what is achievable through apprenticeship programmes. That will take time. It may be as much a communication, branding and awareness challenge. On a number of occasions, we have raised the particular challenges of the lack of sufficient career guidance in second level education. During the crisis years, one of the issues that affected the quality of decision making from school leavers was that we had poor career guidance. Even before the crisis, we probably did not have a sufficiently good model either. We should address the resourcing of career guidance and ensure that we are prioritising the branding, the case studies and the experience sharing of what is coming through the new apprenticeship models. Apprentices now are very different from what people would traditionally have perceived them to be, that is, predominantly, in the craft sector.