Ms Josephine Feehily:

I am glad Mr. Deenihan finished well. I was about to say I disagreed with him but he recovered towards the end. I do not think anything is unsuitable for women. The traditional craft apprenticeship is not governed by the TUs. We did what was called the block in my time but I do not know what it is called these days. I referenced the new national apprenticeship board, and it is now SOLAS. There is action required in order to encourage and mandate positive action and, indeed, positive discrimination. That is entirely possible perfectly reasonable when a group is under-represented.

The TUs have a role in traditional apprenticeships up to apprenticeship level, beyond which is our space and we are happy to claim it as apprentices move up the academic ladder. At the apprenticeship level, the student body is heavily directed towards us by SOLAS and employers. There is serious scope for positive action at that level in terms of role modelling with girls' schools and making it clear in general that there is a good living to be made.

I sat on the platform for graduations in Athlone last October, when I was all of three weeks into my position. I was shocked at the gendered nature of the programmes. The day we did the engineering programmes, there was a handful of women. The day we did the nursing programmes, there was a handful of men. I had not seen anything quite so stark in a very long time. There is a lot of work to be done and the focus on STEM subjects is only the start.

On the positive side, the handful of women who were on the engineering programmes were moving up the value chain and into research and PhDs. There were more women at the higher end of engineering than there were in the basic degree course. That was a bit of a relief. However, the Deputy is right that there is a lot of work to be done.