Ms Sinéad Ní Fhátharta:

There was ceist amháin from Seanadóir Ó Céidigh about the significant challenges. We have all the challenges that small to medium enterprises, SMEs, have with regard to the appropriate skills. When a promoter comes to us we must ask if we can finance them and support them and we look at how that is driven. People do not like to mention the State-aid rules but they dictate who we can and cannot help. The Senator asked how many we refuse. We do not maintain that data. If we cannot help them we try to redirect them wherever we can, perhaps to a Leader programme, and if we cannot help them financially we see if we can help them with building capability and skills. We do not like to look at the refusals; it is about the successes and the growth and where we can support them in soft advice and supports.

Infrastructure is a huge issue, be it broadband or the road to Carraroe or the road to Gweedore. It is a major challenge because while we can build the advance factories or offices, how do we get the product and people in or out and how do we stop people leaving and not coming back? That is a huge issue. This is part of our work with secondary schools and is something that may have fallen back, but we are building it again. In the 1980s and the 1990s we did a lot of work at secondary school level to show that these were the companies in the area and the skills that were needed. Things went awry, but now we are back with Junior Achievement Ireland and looking at STEM to show the students how they can be on a global platform in some of the companies. We tell the students that if they do their science or their ICT, they can work on the global stage and still live in their home region. That is where rural Ireland has to turn it on its head, so we can have companies where people can work on the global stage while living in their local environment and raising their families there. Sin rud atá fíorthábhachtach do gach duine.

I shall now turn to the matter of the technological universities. Coming from a former regional technical college, RTC, myself I am aware that the RTC students hit the ground running. Growth and restructuring of the apprenticeship system will bring huge value to companies so they can develop people in their skill sets, who will then stay or if they need to go then they can come back. This will be a great bonus because people understand the apprenticeship system. Rural people understand that process very well and have seen people doing extremely well. We have the entrepreneurs, including a company in Donegal that has produced two leading apprenticeships in the motor industry, which came from that process. We need to showcase those people to highlight the importance of that element of education.