Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail)
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I have a vested interest to a certain extent through my business. A chap who is working with me is on an apprenticeship through SOLAS and a lady who is with us was pursing a course at weekends for two years and has just finished it. I have quite an amount of experience working with SOLAS on and off over the years. The new apprenticeship programme for auctioneering seems to be a good course. There are a couple of things that could be tweaked in it but there is interaction between employers, students and the school. There is one running in Cork and one in Ballsbridge and they appear to be running quite well. That is all a lovely note to get us off to a great start from a practical point of view.

However, I must query the numbers. They do not correlate with the numbers I have. I presume the numbers the witnesses have are not stand alone yearly numbers, given the numbers I have received. The witness said the number was 1,900 in 2013. Then there was the new activation programme in 2014. The witness then referred to 4,500 people in 2018. Is that over four years?