In the age of 'New Labour' spin the public are seldom surprised when a story in the headlines, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They now have to search the story, investigate the content, read between the lines of the press release, to find the hidden content.

Users will recall the hype that surrounded the news that Northern Ireland Water was to start an Apprenticeship Scheme, in fact, Sir Reg Empy himself formed part of the story, highlighting the new ApprenticeshipsNI scheme.

What both Northern Ireland Water and Sir Reg Empy failed to tell you was that prior to this scheme, Northern Ireland Water took on unskilled workers, such as those now targeted by the apprenticeship scheme. They failed to tell you that the entry level into Northern Ireland Water for such employees was a class 3 industrial Operative on a starting salary of £16,949.00. They failed to highlight to you the starting salary of the new apprenticeship they were now pushing was a mere, £10,000 per annum for a 37 hour week and they failed to tell you that this means that a new apprentice with Northern Ireland Water is being paid just under £5.20 per hour, which is approximately 53 pence less per hour than the National Minimum Wage for over 21's.

In short both Northern Ireland Water and Sir Reg Empy have not only failed to highlight these issues but they would appear to have failed you!

Last Updated 3rd December 2008