It`s hoped that a four-year pilot course in hairdressing currently being run by FAS in Jervis Street, Dublin, will be adopted as a standardised method of training. According to Joseph Bell, president of the Irish Hairdressers' Federation, "as a group we would like to see hairdressing regularised and licensed - and we'd like to see a national training and certification scheme."

The pilot programme was drawn up by a committee made up of representatives from the industry, FAS and the VEC. Training cannot be done on a national scale without Government help, Bell explains. A decision on whether or not this pilot programme is to be implemented will "boil down to the amount of pressure we can put on." Ultimately it will come down to money.

Bell points out that the industry has been in discussions for 15 to 20 years "trying to regularise training - there is an enormous amount of work to get this thing up and running."

Between 25,000 and 30,000 people work in the hairdressing industry, according to Bell.