State accreditation system left with many questions to answer

STATE-approved Empower Training closed its doors last Friday, leaving 25 employees with up to three months pay outstanding and about 1,000 learners concerned about what will happen to courses they have paid up to €4,600 to partake in.

Based in the south-east but running courses across the country and online, the company had received more than €1 million from state agencies Fás and Skillnets.

Since 2002, the husband and wife team behind Empower, Stephen Doran and Vivienne Hinton, have administered hundreds of courses for the public and private sector. In 2006, the company was granted FETAC Quality Assurance Registration status for programmes it offered in areas that included IT, health and childcare.