Mr. Brian Nolan:

I am not aware of any statistics on the figures coming from Youthreach. There are some initiatives that have had some success in access to apprenticeships. TU Dublin, when it was in Kevin Street, ran a programme, as did other third level institutes. Ultimately, the difference between directing people towards something and securing the apprenticeship is that it relies on the employer to still offer the job at the end of that. That is the difference between an apprenticeship and going to a third level institute. That in itself causes a problem. The minimum entry level for most craft apprenticeships is five passes in the junior certificate. We now have a situation where employers, for their own reasons, will decide they want leaving certificate qualifications. They might be justified in some areas and there might be some arguments for it, but studies would suggest that is not necessarily the case. That is why it is set at five passes in the junior certificate. The reason I mention this is that, with the best will in the world, a lot of kids coming through Youthreach may not have the aspiration of the leaving certificate or beyond. To be fair, they are probably the group that would be stigmatised, out of all the groups.

A greater effort is needed to get buy-in from the employer side of this conversation to make the jobs available to them. That is the problem. They can do these pre-apprenticeship courses and sit in front of an employer who, at the end of an interview, says the candidate is not suitable for them. I do not have the stats on it but I do know that this is possibly the weakness in that whole process. At the same time, a school leaver could be in the frame of mind of doing an apprenticeship. There is no shortage of school leavers looking for apprenticeships, and there has not been a shortage of apprenticeships when you look at the statistics either. There are a lot of apprentices in the system based on the industry needs. I pointed out earlier that not all of them are working here in Ireland. A lot of them are working for contractors, mechanical, electrical and construction firms all over Europe because the demand for our craft is so high. We have an industry that is feeding the world with our craft workers as well. It is huge. It is all very positive in that sense in that there is work and that our skills are sought after, but it still presents that problem in the point about a young guy or girl coming through Youthreach that we need that end piece. That is the commitment to give them a chance.