THE president of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), Mr Kevin Kelly, has said that federation members are dissatisfied with their FAS apprentices.

This follows a call by the chief executive of ISME, Mr Frank Mulcahy, for a joint survey between ISME and FAS to find out whether or not employers are happy with the FAS apprentices.

Speaking after the CIF's a.g.m., Mr Kelly said that they were happy with the increase in the numbers of apprentices this year. However, he said "the industry is generally dissatisfied with the general type of apprentices" that were coming from FAS.

Mr Kelly highlighted the concern felt in the industry about the issue. "Some members feel that the young apprentices do not necessarily have the right attitude to work."

He said that the CIF was carrying out an in-house survey in an attempt to gauge the reaction of all its members to the situation. "We are developing a workshop to develop the ideal training programme, said Mr Kelly, who said that there should be a more hands-on approach in industry in relation to training.

Meanwhile, ISME has challenged FAS to undertake a joint review of industry's attitude to the national training authority. This follows the release of a survey by ISME which concluded that there Was widespread dissatisfaction with FAS-trained apprentices among the companies it surveyed.

The results of this survey were rejected by FAS, which pointed to an Irish Marketing Surveys report conducted in the autumn of 1996. This survey concluded that there was a high level of satisfaction with its training methods.