Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

This has been very informative. I thank the witnesses for coming in. It is good to hear from different perspectives. I will make a couple of comments and ask a couple of questions.

First, I have spoken to the head of Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board, ETB, and to guidance counsellors about apprenticeships. One of the issues seems to be that apprenticeships often start in January. I also raised this in the Seanad. It is hard for a young person leaving school in June to twiddle his or her thumbs until the following January when most of his or her equals are going to have a laugh for the summer and then go to college in September. We really need to look at that.

It is prohibitive that a person must be on social welfare for at least six months before he or she can take up many of these apprenticeships. We really need to change that. Why tell people to stay on social welfare for six months to take up an apprenticeship? Why is starting in January so common among apprenticeships? I would really like to hear some information on that one simple issue. Can we change that in some way? I know from speaking with many of my guidance counsellor friends who work in secondary schools that when their students seek to take up apprenticeships, in many cases they must wait until January. I would like information on that. In addition, it would perhaps save the State money if we are not asking them all to go on the dole for six months. The sooner they get stuck into something else, the better it is for them. It is never good for anybody to stay on social welfare if he or she does not want to do so.

I will raise a couple of other issues. I know from talking to the heads of the local enterprise offices, LEOs, that when they carry out training, it is uncertified. That means they are upskilling many of the small employees but not similarly qualifying them. A huge issue in the SME sector, which accounts for a big portion of our employees and employers, is that when they carry out training, it is not certified. I know from teaching in the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, HETAC, and Further Education and Training Awards Council, FETAC, that it is not that hard to reach the specific learning outcomes for modules to get certification in education.

I would love to see the LEOs working with the education and training board, ETB, and IBEC perhaps getting involved in some way to encourage that by looking at the apprenticeships and skills needed and seeing how they can fit into some kind of FETAC level 5, 6, 7 or 8 module, depending on what skills they are bringing to it.

Where are the 90 WRC inspectors? What we are doing about getting more of them. Everybody here wants every employee and employer to be treated well. Therefore, if we do not have enough WRC inspectors, can we as a committee ask when we are getting the rest of them? If we only have 47 inspectors out of 90, what is the plan for getting a few more? What happens with those inspections? What is the follow-up?

I have been a migrant worker. I emigrated to America and Germany in my time and encountered language barrier and bad payment issues. Luckily, an Irish lad, who is now actually a millionaire, set up a support company for getting tax back for people. At the time, we could go to him and he could stand up for us. It is, however, very hard for a young migrant to be empowered to stand up for himself or herself. Therefore, the thought of meat factory workers getting mistreated is terrible. The meat factory workers and their employers, who are in the minority, are not the benchmark we should be working off for the employers or employees. It is one small section of the whole issue around workers' rights.

It is great that the Government has agreed to 10,000 apprenticeships overall. The will is there from Government; we now need to figure out the "how" of it all. At least the will is there, which is great; 10,000 per year is a good figure to aim towards. We now need to figure out how to do it. I know the Ministers, Deputies McEntee and O'Gorman, are working on the direct provision centre issue. It occurs to me that we have more than 5,000 asylum seekers.

Many of them are extremely well qualified. If we are stuck for qualified people in the workforce, let us see what we can do about speeding up the process relating to asylum seekers. It would be madness to bring people in from other countries if we already have them in our direct provision centres. I think the Ministers, Deputies McEntee and O'Gorman, might finally be beginning to bring about an end to all that madness. One meets doctors, labourers, brain surgeons and carpenters in direct provision centres, so that is something to consider.

The twice-yearly skills needs assessment is brilliant. It will be interesting to see where the gaps exist. They should maybe become part of the committee's focus. If there are glaringly obvious skill shortages in certain areas, based on that twice-yearly assessment, let us find out what they are and what we can do about shifting it.