Dr Keith Sunderland

Children need to be

attracted into engineering and construction, as do girls in particularly.

Less than 12% of girls

are operating as engineers in our economy.

So it's a big issue across the pipeline.

Yeah well ultimately yes like practical education I mean within Engineers Ireland we accredit programs from apprenticeship all the way up to engineering level and we have what's known as consortia led apprenticeships which are partnerships between education higher educational providers and employers and they're increasing but they're not increasing quickly enough so we have apprenticeships in the mechanical and manufacturing space and the industrial electrical engineering space

But we also need to tackle the skill shortages at the digitisation, the building information technology, the skills that are required across the spectrum in the industry.

And, you know, ultimately, those skills need to be balanced by human in the loop or human in the lead.

So while we have those digitisation opportunities and they are being taught to our level, we need to emphasise the ethical requirements as well.

So it's a multifaceted and wicked problem, really.