“You apply for 100 jobs and 95 don’t get back to you,” says 18-year-old Conor Maxwell, who lives locally and regularly comes to the centre, where his mother, Janis, works. [ Unemployment in State at 4.9% in NovemberOpens in new window ]“It used to be you just had to have a Junior Cert but now you need your traditional Leaving Cert. Starting off, that’s too much to ask.”There are still routes into these programmes without the Leaving Cert but in reality almost all successful applicants have the Leaving Cert. The more practical nature of courses he has taken since leaving school make far more sense to him, he says. Nathan Ronan (20) did just that: he became embroiled with “the wrong crowd” after leaving school at 16 with no qualifications.

Source: The Irish Times December 06, 2025 15:01 UTC