Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)

I offer my congratulations to the Minister and Minister of State. I have not had the opportunity to do so in the Chamber previously.

I note a statement here to the effect that many of the skills of today did not exist yesterday and that many of the skills of tomorrow do not exist today. That is very true. It is the reality of life. When it comes to research and development, perhaps we are not as advanced as we would like to think. There has to be a bigger focus on that.

Equally, as my colleague from Tipperary stated earlier, a number of apprenticeships have been closed off to people for years. "Apprenticeship" was almost a dirty word in second level education when some young fella or young lady wanted to go off and become a plumber, an electrician, a builder or whatever. It was almost the case that they had focus on going to university or college. I say that as somebody who represents a constituency where we have UCC, MTU, Cork College of Commerce, St. John's College, Griffith College and the Tyndall Institute. I am extremely proud of that but, equally, in this city we have a company call Trade Path, which is trying to get people into apprenticeships and make them accessible.

While, in fairness, apprenticeships have moved on and been somewhat improved under this Government and that which preceded it, we have to look at apprenticeships in the catering sector. An electrician in this sector can go off and get paid by the State, but a hotel will have to pay for its catering apprentices.

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