When Olive O'Shea received a flyer through her door last year detailing Tallaght Regional Technical College's New Opportunities for Women (NOW) programme she immediately jumped at the opportunity to apply.
Hewlett-Packard was involved in the project and she was interested in getting a job at the nearby plant.
Now in her forties, Mrs O'Shea had been working as a caterer at Maynooth University, after giving up a full-time job in the Department of Justice 17 years previously to raise her family. She has three children - the eldest is 22 - and her husband works in the civil service. She responded to the flyer and was called to interview. "I gave up my job years ago because of the tax and the cost of child care, but I always planned to get back to the workplace. Hewlett-Packard was offering full-time employment, and that was my goal at the time," says Mrs O'Shea.
The course, which ran from October 1996 to February 1997, took on 19 people out of 205 applicants and 60 interviewees. Entitled "Women In Electronics" it focused on a 50/50 split between technical and personal skills development. Subjects covered included mathematics, computer skills, basic technology and communications.
"It was a bit daunting in the beginning as I didn't know what to expect. I was particularly anxious as the only science I had done at school was domestic science. But the lecturers took things very easily, and by helping each other out we coped pretty well," Mrs O'Shea says.
Of the 19 on the course, 18 received job offers from Hewlett Packard after they had gone through the standard company recruitment procedure. Mrs O'Shea is now trained as an auditor, carrying out the final inspection on ink-jet cartridges. She works seven 12-hour shifts over a two-week period, alternating each fortnight between day and night work. Including shift allowance, she earns a basic wage of £13,500.
"I'm very happy to be back in full-time employment earning my own wage," she says.
Mrs O'Shea doesn't mind working with people younger than her, and finds it most encouraging that Hewlett-Packard employs across all age groups. She says the NOW programme gave her the push she knew she needed to apply for the job.
