Mr. Michael Fitzgerald:

We are very proud of the 25% of apprentices made up of female candidates who joined us as part of our diversity campaign. We try to increase the number of applicants every year and we build on our numbers of applicants with a view to increasing diversity through that. We now have a policy in the company that up to 2030, we will be looking to take in 40% female applicants across every role, including apprenticeships.

On secondary schools, the Deputy asked how we can promote apprenticeships further. As referred to by her, we visited 55 schools in the past year in 24 counties and in all of those, our apprentices were our chief advocates. They were there meeting with their peers, and linking with parents and teachers as well, and creating a bridge to that cohort. These were very positive engagements with the result that every year we have 5,000, 6,000 or 7,000 applicants for our apprenticeships. This is a very diverse group of applicants.

The mindset towards apprenticeships, which the Deputy mentioned, is changing because people now see it as a valid career. When we look at the people who join us as apprentices, they are not all school leavers by any means. There are people who join us who have had other careers and forms of education. They see apprenticeships as a valid career opportunity where people earn as they learn and, from day one, they are within the area within which their industry is based. There is no sudden shock when one finishes education where they get a job and it is not what they thought it would be. They are in the industry they have joined from day one so they reach an understanding of it in that way.

On career guidance teachers, we have created a link with the Irish career guidance teachers group. We will inviting its representatives to familiarisation sessions in our training centre this year and we hope to build on that.

Finally, we support a programme where we do summer internships for teachers. This year we had a primary and a secondary teacher in a role within our training centre to try to further engage on how we can improve our own engagement with schools and with teachers, to make our apprenticeship more relevant and attractive to people generally across schools.