Mr. Liam Berney:

I can offer observations. There is ongoing public consultation around the apprenticeship action plan from 2020 to 2025. All of the questions the Senator has asked are being addressed in that. The consultation is not closed and the action plan has not been published. Perhaps it would be useful for her to express her concerns to her colleague, the Minister, Deputy Harris, who is developing the action plan. In our submission to the Departments on their action plan, we raised some of the same questions the Senator has mentioned.

She referred to construction. It is a complex sector. There are a couple of things that are important to say about construction. First, construction is one area where there are advanced systems of social dialogue, collective bargaining and all of the rest of that. That has resulted in sectoral wage making mechanisms in construction in order that people are properly paid and so on. I do not want people to have the impression, however, that construction is perfect because it is far from it. A large proportion of workers in construction are classified as being self-employed when they are actually employees. It is a disincentive for people to work in construction because there is a growing practice of misclassification of workers in the sector.

My colleagues from IBEC are very reluctant to get into this area because they do not represent construction employers in general. The Construction Industry Federation is the representative body. The problem with apprenticeships at the moment is that there are structural barriers in their way. One thing that would make a world of difference tomorrow would be for new apprentices to do the first eight months of their apprenticeships in training colleges, as opposed to getting have to get employers to sponsor them. They could use that time to get the support of State agencies to find an employer or the State itself could take them on. There are things that can be done to make apprenticeships more attractive.