Ms Claire McGee:

That is a big challenge. First of all, we need to ensure that there is a single financial model for apprenticeship in Ireland. What we have now is almost a two-tier system. We have the consortia-led post-2016 programmes and the pre-2016 ones, which are predominantly more the craft-related apprenticeship programmes.

The newer model is a completely different financing structure. It is quite expensive for some employers to engage one of those programmes because they have to carry a significant cost around the mentoring, the training, the teaching and the off-the-job training. What we need to do as a priority is support more employers to be able to engage in it and then, like the ESB, make it part of their DNA and philosophy so that in time we will have future business leaders who have come through the apprenticeship model. It is my ambition to see future chief executive officers, CEOs, who have been apprentices in the past. That is when we will get a cultural and mind-shift across apprenticeship within industry.