Ms Beatrice Dooley:

I walk by building sites on my way to school and I see very nice cars. Four postgraduate qualifications later, I am earning less than I was ten years ago. If I had known all those years ago what I know now, I would have done an apprenticeship. We have expertise in our schools and local areas. We are committed to bringing in local employers and local industry; we just need the time to organise it. I am in a school of 620 and to organise an event at which approximately 40 will speak - each student has the option to attend six talks - takes me three weeks of evening and weekend work. Not everybody will have the time for that, for example some people have young children at home. I do not have children at home, so that is fine. Not everyone has the luxury of time. The time needs to be knitted into the job, if that makes sense. We need a bit of support. We are looking for more time to do our job.

With regard to the co-ordinated national approach, I would say "Yes, please". I am cross-eyed from writing submissions for the past year and a half. In every one I have written, including the review and the pre-budget submission - Deputy Thomas Byrne can recite them - I have sought an interdepartmental approach to this and to everything to do with guidance. We are looking for policy that is not just top-down, but bottom-up. We would love it if people would open their doors to practitioners at second level and in the area of adult guidance to hear what it is like for us on the ground and the challenges that are blocking us from doing our jobs and from delivering fully on the new initiatives we want to undertake.