Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

We covered some of this at the start of the meeting. We now have 58 apprenticeship programmes covering a whole range of new areas, as well as the traditional craft areas. There is a need to further ramp up apprenticeships. There is a target of having 10,000 registrations per year by the end of the programme for Government. Last year, we had 6,400 registrations so if we really focus, we can deliver on the target. As the Deputy alluded to, the key to this development is employers. There cannot be an apprentice without an employer who is willing to take on that apprentice. The number of employers engaging in the scheme has gone from 3,000 to over 6,000 in the last few years, but we need to go much further. It needs to be part of the normal business practice across a much wider range of employers. We need greater parity of esteem in respect of funding the off-the-job costs for new apprenticeships as well as the craft apprenticeships. Funding for these costs is available for the craft apprenticeships at the moment. We need to look at incentivisation schemes.

On how the incentive scheme works, it works very simply, which is part of the beauty of the concept. Essentially, the scheme provides an employer with €2,000 for taking on an apprentice and if the apprentice is kept on for a year, the employer gets a further €1,000. It has worked very well and is simple to understand. The scheme has been running for a few months and we have already received applications for around 1,900 apprentices from over 900 employers.

It has really helped us to catch up because we had to close down some of the training facilities during the lockdown period. We were lagging behind but it has helped us to stabilise the numbers and catch up a bit in terms of the numbers of apprentices. We should look at continuing this along the line as a much wider package of employer supports.