Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Someone asked about apprenticeships. The budget for apprenticeships and further and higher education was increased. The Deputy is right. It has been a slow burn with regard to apprenticeships. We have been working with the Apprenticeship Council to get that message out. I have met the various stakeholders and will meet businesses in the next week to try to ensure that the message is out there that apprenticeships are viable. New professional apprenticeships are on stream. Again, it is a slow burn. It is a very slow burn when it comes to women taking apprenticeships. As the Minister of State with responsibility for higher education, along with the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, who is responsible for further education, I assure the Deputy that we are working on that to ensure that the take-up of apprenticeships increases.

The other group we work with is the expert group on future skills needs, which looks at the gaps in the market and gaps in employability. It then informs the Department and the Ministers of the day about which areas need to be looked at. I thank our higher education institutions, institutes of technology, technological universities and our nine skills fora. It is very important. They have been working together so that they can be flexible and react to the market. For example, if a company is coming into a region, the relevant institute of technology, university or technological university will be able to respond to the needs of the regions. That has worked. I will list some areas where it has worked very well, including Sligo and, in particular, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan's area of Limerick.