Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Each year the allocation from the National Training Fund goes predominantly into the SOLAS budget, as well as funding other activities such as Springboard. We are currently discussing increasing the contribution to the training fund from 0.7% to 1%, which would provide additional money that would, in turn, be deployed to contribute to higher education and to apprenticeships. While the fund carries a surplus we cannot just spend that surplus. It is still within the Exchequer ceilings that we have to agree with Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. I do not have the flexibility to just spend more from the fund because it still has to be approved by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in the normal budgetary process. It is like a surplus in the Social Insurance Fund in that it still has to be deployed by a budgetary decision. We envisage wanting to use more money from this area for these purposes but to do so, we need to increase the contribution to the fund.