The Irish national apprentices' team has come third in the World Skills Olympics at Montreal. After a week of intense competition only the teams from Taipei and Austria came in ahead of the 18-strong Irish contingent.
Ireland won two gold meals, two silver medals and three bronze medals. The gold medallists were Mr John Gallahue, an apprentice bricklayer from Ballylanders, Limerick, and Ms Rita Dempsey, who won the restaurant service award. She is from Castlebridge, Co Wexford.
The silver medallists were Mr Niall Harmon, an apprentice fitter from Tinahely, Co Wicklow, and Mr Darren Allen Dennigan, an apprentice carpenter from Glanworth, Co Cork. The bronze medallists were Mr Denis McHugh, Headford, Co Galway, Mr Seamus Lancaster, Arklow, Co Wicklow, and Mr Andrew Williams, Portlaoise.
They won the industrial electronics, computer numeric milling and graphic design categories respectively.
The director general of FAS, Mr John Lynch, offered his congratulations to the team yesterday. He said "the excellent performance has to be measured against the international competition. This comes from the most advanced industrial nations in the world. The team's performance over the past week has confirmed that Ireland is now on an equal par with the most skilful countries in the world.".
Ireland, which has been sending teams to this international biennial event for more than 15 years, has done progressively better at each olympics. Two years ago, in Switzerland, the Irish team came sixth, its best performance until yesterday's result in Montreal.
This year, at the 35th Skills Olympics, the Irish team not only won seven medals, but scored highly in other categories. The overall team result is based on the total number of marks accumulated.
More than 30 countries were represented at the olympics.