Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy alluded to the CAO in the preamble to his question. Recently the Department has completely broadened the information and the provision of information and options on the CAO website in order that people can now access full information such as where and when to apply through the CAO options for further and higher education and apprenticeships. Built into that is the availability of guidance counselling. To give people information and direction, they can now explore course choices, career options and apprenticeship options. That is primarily what is going on in that space in terms of broadening this out.

In response to Deputy Tully, I said that there are 62 apprenticeships. There are 20 more apprenticeships in the formalised development process and a further 18 or 19 expressions of interest to advance those concepts through the process and, hopefully, categorise them formally as apprenticeships.