No real respect for our craft industry

This country is gone to the dogs and the people who run it have no idea of how the decisions they make impact on its citizens.

You may have read recently that VEC colleges have had their budgets seriously slashed, but what does that mean for the students? My son signed up for a two-year course in musical instrument making and was recently told that year 2 was cancelled due to cutbacks. He has two options — apply for another course in a different area and start all over again, where he will not be entitled to a student grant because you do not get a grant if you repeat a level; or he will have to move to Germany to seek an apprenticeship from a company and his craft will be forever lost to this country.

We are the only country that do not hold our craft industry in high esteem. It is a dying industry. We should take a leaf out of our European brothers’ books and embrace crafts.

Nobody is sparing a thought for the older men and women who turn to these colleges to retrain, those that are on social welfare and who take the brave step to retrain in the hope of securing employment. They can retrain in another area at a higher level, or remain on the dole and every so often they will be told to do some Fás course, or something else irrelevant.

I, for one, would prefer that my taxes are spent given dole payments to individuals who are retraining in their chosen field, not one picked by the Government.

Myrna Hunter

Ballincollig

Co Cork