Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

We continue to completely neglect our third level sector. We are seeing that now in terms of outcomes, student choices and, worryingly, in terms of perception. If we are asking all these companies that are spending a great deal of money on our physical infrastructure and building wonderful facilities in Dublin to have their global intellectual property sitting in Ireland and we are not minding our own intellectual property in terms of funding our universities, these companies will quickly see we are not a serious player in terms of operating at a global level because we are not making smart decisions around investment. We have been frittering this away in day-to-day spending, much of it into the health service. When we consider the level of public scrutiny of the budget for the construction of the national children’s hospital, there is not the same level of scrutiny of the day-to-day spending of the €11.5 billion we have overspent in Supplementary Estimates in the space of four years. There is very little scrutiny of that from what we can see.

On the issue of apprenticeships, my colleagues from the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, may want to come back in on construction specific issues. From a broad business perspective, as I said, there are 40 different sectors or trade associations in IBEC. A number of those have been instrumental in getting new apprenticeships up and running in sectors such as financial services and manufacturing. We are also examining options around retail, for example. We are trying to broaden out the conversation on apprenticeship options. Uptake of them has been slow. We are disappointed with the uptake of some of the apprenticeships we have sponsored through our trade associations. As Gerard Brady said in a previous response, there is a cost issue in terms of small employers, in particular, that must examined but, collectively, we need to do an a great deal more to brand, promote and encourage young people to consider the options available. Much of this is connected to education sector reform. It is not only about young people making these decisions at the age of 16 or 17. This must be addressed right through our education system in terms of our approach to learning, junior certificate reform and the way young people are being educated under the national school curriculum. Many of our member companies engage on issues such as the gender challenge we face in certain sectors with the very low level of female participation. They are visiting primary schools. They know that by the time students move on to secondary school it is far too late. This work must start at primary school level but a much more systematic and fundamental reform of our education system is required and part of that requires us to have a broad perspective on the opportunities in apprenticeships. Compared to where we were five years ago, we have achieved an awful lot. When I consider the new options we have in apprenticeships, we have achieved a great deal but the uptake of them has been disappointing and slow and we want to see some changes in that respect.