John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will take up some of the points made by Deputy Neville. There is no question that we lost many skilled people during the recession. At one stage in 2007, there were 50,000 people serving their apprenticeship, and that number reduced to approximately 5,000.

Let us look at the apprenticeships that were on offer during the boom, such as electrics, carpentry, brickwork, plastering and so on, but following the downturn many builders decided not to take on apprentices and employ others, some from outside Ireland who were not qualified. I have no problem with people from outside of Ireland working here.

We lost the capacity to offer apprenticeships as the numbers offered dribbled out in some fundamental areas. It is my objective to try to entice companies to take on more people to serve an apprenticeship. It may require an added incentive for employers to do that. One of the suggestions that I had been making is that since JobBridge was being axed, paying a company to take on the apprentice for a period of time would work. The problem apprentices found, once they went through their three or four years training, was there was no job so they left.

Innovation 2020 is a programme where Enterprise Ireland, IDA, Science Foundation Ireland try to attract people with high quality jobs. Last week in University College Dublin I addressed the issue of job creation from high-tech jobs in the science area. It was agreed that in order to attract those who were highly skilled and qualified to return to this country, we would as Deputy Neville said not get them back unless we have the jobs. Under the Innovation 2020 programme, there is the human capital and creativity fund that would attempt to bring people back. I was in London last week to speak on Brexit, but I met many young people who had left and were working in high-tech industry in London and other parts of England, who would value an opportunity of good jobs to which to return. That is an issue this Government will address through the 2020 Horizon project.