Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will try to give the witnesses more time to talk this time. I always forget about that. We did not hear from Dr. Power at all.

I spoke to a plumber friend of mine who has 20 staff to hear his perspective. I love listening to tradesman. When trying to sort out the issue it is always good to talk to the lads on the ground. He said that the plumbing apprenticeship programme is appallingly stuck in the 1980s. New plumbers are not getting proper up-to-date training on air-to-water systems or using plastic rather than copper and metal materials. I have the details in an email from him that I could read out, but the witnesses get the idea. The plumbing apprenticeship training is not up to speed and as a result the tradesman, the employer, is left paying a private company to do training for the apprentice to learn how to use the new systems, some of which have been around for some time. I believe my brother got an air-to-water system in his house 15 years ago so it is not that new.

My friend said that as an employer, it is frustrating to release an apprentice for block release knowing that most of what they are learning will not be applicable to their actual job. A complete overhaul of the syllabus is badly needed. His father went to AnCO in 1971 and much of what he did then is still taught today 50 years later. That is something I want to flag. I brought it up previously. It is great that we have apprenticeships and all that, but what we are teaching them needs to be relevant. Otherwise, we are putting extra costs on the employer to pay private companies to upskill their apprentices who are not learning it in their apprenticeships.

I want to talk about SOLAS. It is still not possible to get a safe pass online, which is prohibitive. In England they have been doing safe passes online for years. I have also been on about this for months. This is not just related to the Covid pandemic but applies generally. Why can they not be done online? It is costly and time consuming if someone needs to travel. I was told that somebody from County Clare needs to go to County Roscommon for the next available one.

The prior learning is not completely clear to me. I have been trying to get the information from SOLAS. It appears that people are required to send in a portfolio or something. I do not know if anybody here is aware of that, but it is still not clear to me. I have failed after months trying to find out how the prior learning actually works. I got some vague response about them sending in a portfolio. My concept of a portfolio is when leaving certificate students need to submit an art portfolio and they get very stressed out about it. I am wondering how hard and prohibitive it is to ask a tradesman with 30 years' experience to submit a portfolio. There are some great people who do not have qualifications and are happy to take on apprenticeships but do not have the certificate.