Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Donohoe. I will open the forum to questions and I myself might kick off.

Deputy Kelleher brought a motion on apprenticeships through the Dáil last week. It is timely that we had that motion last week and that we are here discussing the matter today.

For the first six months of this year, the committee put a great deal of effort into addressing the cost of doing business. We had all the stakeholders in from across all the different sectors. It was interesting to hear from the tourism and hospitality sector, agriculture and construction, all of which bemoaned the lack of apprenticeships coming through. The tourism and hospitality sectors spoke about the dismantling of CERT in 2013, stating that there has not been any single organisation with sole responsibility for hospitality and tourism since then and that the lack of this training policy has left a significant void in that sector.

We heard a great deal about those who would have worked in the construction sector who when they get to their mid-50s find it difficult to continue along on those lines because it is a physical job. I am sure Deputy Kelleher will touch on this later. I ask Mr. Donohoe to comment on those two issues first.

I was shocked last week when I heard that women represent only 2% of all those doing apprenticeships in this country at present while 54% of those who took up apprenticeships in the UK between 2016 and 2017 were women. Mr. Donohoe might address why IBEC believes there are so few women entering into apprenticeships and what we can do to improve those statistics.