Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Both of the witnesses have appeared previously before the Joint Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation, of which I was the chair. We looked at the cost of doing business and one of our key recommendations was to straighten out, as the witness put it, the book of quantum. Unfortunately, that has not happened, and it always comes back to bite.

I have a question for Mr. McCoy in respect of one of IBEC's key recommendations, namely, getting people back to work by ramping up support for labour market activation programmes and increasing employment support funding. I was listening to the radio yesterday and I heard that 51% of people under 25 years of age are out of work. Another body of work we did on that committee was to look at the role of apprenticeships. Is there a major opportunity now for young people to get involved in apprenticeships and to earn as they learn? We were disappointed at the time to learn that only 2% of young females were involved and all the rest of the young apprentices were male. There is a major opportunity in this area for those people who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic. They might not have an easy road back to employment. Does Mr. McCoy believe this could be an opportunity?