Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It will only yield €1.6 million, but it will cause a high level of hardship for apprentices. Given that we are awaiting a report on a review of the apprenticeship system, it seems to be a very premature move by the Department. I know that it is probably tied in with the establishment of SOLAS which will be taking over responsibility from FÁS for training courses, but it is a small amount of money in the overall scheme of things. I again take the opportunity to ask the Minister of State to explain the rationale for this decision, given the modest savings involved. Did the Department examine possible funding streams from the European Union such as ERASMUS to try to offset some of the cost? Was no other option available to it other than to charge full fees to apprentices? We will quickly reach a situation where apprentices who are currently undergoing off-site training in institutes of technology but who are unable to pay the full fees will not be able to obtain their examination results and will not be able to progress their training career. It is a very retrograde step for such a minuscule amount of money. I, therefore, ask the Minister of State to review the decision.