The talk on ‘a day in the life of an open eir technician - bringing broadband to rural Ireland’ at the Agri Careers Fair gave visitors a taste of the career opportunities in training as an apprentice technician.

Wholesale managing director at open eir Carolan Lennon spoke to Fiona Woods, Andy O’Neill and Pat Cheshire, all of whom work for open eir as trained technicians.

Fiona Woods joined open eir’s apprentice scheme in 2011. She became a national field technician in 2013 and now works for their national response team to improve service around the country.

At the moment, there are just three female technicians and Fiona says they would like to see more women fill the roles. She added that the “jobs are the same for everybody and you won’t get it any easier just because you’re a girl”.

Andy O’Neill from Kildare also came through the scheme. He now travels around the country in his job: “No two jobs are the same and it changes all the time.”

Andy was an electrician before he became a technician, but that made no difference to the job. “It was a blank platform. It was a big career step, but I wouldn’t leave this job. I love it and you couldn’t push me out the door,” he said.

Pat Cheshire did an apprenticeship in 1984 and says it still stands to him to this day. Although technology may have changed, “the role of the apprentice is still the same. It’s about working hard and learning the ropes,” he said.

The first-ever Agri Careers Fair was held at the RDS on 3 March, with 7,000 visitors and more than 1,000 jobs on offer.

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