Mr. John Kearney:

Certainly. The greatest challenge with the pandemic, and there are many in terms of the delivery of FET services, were the delivery of apprenticeships because of their focus on the practical dimension, but the benefit of the stakeholder group came through with our close working relationships with SOLAS, the union representatives and Department officials. That paved the pathway of a facilitative return for apprenticeship delivery as quickly as possible, with 251 apprentices returning on 1 March, 320 apprentices returning in the next phase and that was escalated to 589 in the second week of April. Currently, there is another plan of increased activity incorporating a return of 720 apprentices. SOLAS has been forward thinking in countering a significant backlog of apprenticeship placements with respect to providing for the three highest categories of apprenticeship delivery, namely, electrical, plumbing and carpentry in January, and it has put in place technical groups.

They will look at an emergency approach. The normal extended phase 2 delivery is for 22 weeks. We are looking for a condensed, blended approach that will cut back the number of weeks required out of work in terms of the delivery of the phase 2 model. As we speak, technical groups are established with six to seven members throughout the FET sector itself, including FET directors, training centre managers and authorised officers and they are concluding a highly ambitious plan to be put in place, hopefully for September, with a view to countering over 4,500 significant components of the backlog with a view to targeted apprenticeship delivery.