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All-Ireland Player Backs All-Ireland Jobs Initiative
– Galway’s Tara Ruttledge supports Springboard!
Tara Ruttledge, a leading goal-scorer in Galway’s team for the All Ireland Camogie Final this weekend, is backing the latest Springboard initiative, which provides free higher education and training for jobseekers countrywide.
Twenty year old Tara from Portumna in Galway, herself a higher education student, says that because Springboard courses are designed to meet current skills needs in Ireland, they greatly enhance job prospects for the course participants.
The Camogie Association, the governing body for the national ladies sport, is promoting the Springboard scheme as a valuable jobs initiative.
“”As a national organisation involved in communities throughout the country, we can see first- hand the demoralising effect of unemployment, particularly people who have lost their jobs as a result of the recession. Encouragement to up-skill or even cross-skill is welcome, and the new Springboard initiative can play an important role in getting people back into the workplace, which we welcome””, Camogie Association President Joan O’Flynn says.
Tara Ruttledge, a 2010 nominee for a Camogie All Star Award, will tog out with Galway to face current All Ireland holders, Wexford, in this year’s senior decider next Sunday, September 11th. Having returned to college this week to complete her final year studies, Tara’s immediate focus in on Sunday’s big match in Croke Park, where the Galway girls hope to teach rivals Wexford a lesson in sporting prowess!
Applicants for Springboard courses can check detail of remaining free course places, and apply online, on the Springboard web-page on www.bluebrick.ie/springboard. Advice is also available from the any of the 34 colleges offering courses, at local F-S offices, social welfare offices, and through the national Adult Guidance Service.
For further media information:
Caroline Moody at Caroline Moody Communications
Tel: +353 (0) 87 265 2485
Editor’s notes
Springboard is designed to help people with a previous history of employment who have lost their jobs as a result of the recession and who need to up-skill or re-skill in order to get back to work. Courses are part-time, and are at certificate, degree and postgraduate level. The free course places do not affect social welfare benefits, and applicants must be unemployed and in receipt of an eligible social welfare payment, or be signing for social insurance credits.
Courses mostly cover sectors where jobs growth is still strong in Ireland, including international financial services, information and communications technology (ICT), pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and the green economy, as well as entrepreneurship and export-orientated business start-up.
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