Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Dillon. I am pleased the Atlantic Technological University and the Castlebar site are now able to provide apprenticeships, but like I was saying earlier, we expand apprenticeship provision. It is important we also try to do it in the regions, because we want people to have an opportunity to be able to access this in their home towns or counties and we want employers in those areas to have an opportunity to access apprentices in their regions as well. Congratulations are due to Dr. Orla Flynn, President of ATU, for her work on that. I am looking forward to seeing the impact it makes in Castlebar and in Mayo.

I assure the Deputy that when it comes to speed of delivery that we very much are not intending to delay this by any manner or means. As a counterpoint to that, these are big projects. This is a massive transformation. We have gone from just about having an emergency fund to fix a leaky roof in a college of further education to having hundreds of millions of euro to spend on capital. We now have somebody in SOLAS leading out on these projects. Avril Behan is a very eminent quantity surveyor leading the way. We will evaluate the cases that have come in as of last Friday and we will work with MSLETB and the local authority in Mayo to finalise site selection as well.

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