Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

——and their parents. Education is about students.

There is a noticeable decrease in other areas such as apprenticeships and other methods of entering employment after leaving school. Senator Quinn alluded to this. Going straight into college is not the best route for all trades. Unfortunately, apprenticeships are dwindling and we need to examine this. An arts degree is not necessarily the best qualification for somebody plumbing or in any of the building trades. We need to bring forward measures to encourage apprenticeship.

A total of 14,000 second level students are taking part in the Government-backed schools' business partnership project, with the Business in the Community organisation, to twin students with a local business and mentor for work experience and help with CV preparation and interviews. Various major companies, including IBM, Deloitte, Diageo and Eircom, take part in the project. It is important to examine as many different ways as possible to help school leavers compete with the huge number of mature students who will take up a number of university places. We need to get the balance right on this and ensure educational possibilities exist for all our people in so far as it is possible to do so. I hope we do the best we can in these difficult circumstances.