Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I am grateful for their contributions and the submissions as well. I might go through a couple of questions, which I will direct to each of the groups for a response.

The first question is for Mr. Conlon and the HEA. We are seeing a significant increase in the number of students at third level, which is placing a big demand on services. I hope it has increased access as well. Reference was made in the submission to lifelong learning. We are below the EU average when it comes to lifelong learning. I know that is not just due to the HEA, as there are many players within this space. How can the future model of increased funding support lifelong learning? How does the HEA foresee working with HEIs to improve that?

Could Mr. Conlon tell me how many students have come through PATH? I was very interested to hear about those two programmes and the deprivation index scores. Is that recent funding? Do we have any statistics on students who have come through the programmes?

We have met Mr. Brownlee from SOLAS several times. It is fantastic to hear about the number of people coming through to the CAO website. It is phenomenal that we are seeing the addition to the CAO form this year. Every chance I get to speak to students, I talk to about how the CAO is not solely about the traditional routes into college but that when they look at the CAO form now there is a choice for further and higher education. At the weekend, I was speaking to a young student who is looking at a pre-nursing course perhaps, instead of going straight into nursing, which shows there are choices in that regard. Such an approach drives choice.

How do we encourage employers? Mr. Brownlee spoke a bit on this too. I am talking especially about micro enterprises and sole traders. How do we engage with that group in particular? I am not talking about the likes of ESB Networks or Electric Ireland, for example. Dr. Trant referred to the significant interest in electrical apprenticeships. How do we engage with micro enterprises, for example, in the region I am from, Roscommon and east Galway, where we are dealing with a lot more supply companies? In addition, they do not have time. They are up the walls. How do we make it easier for them? How do we make better use of the national training fund? Do the witnesses have any suggestions in that regard?

It was very nice to meet Dr. Trant. Her contributions were very informative. She referred to the 62 training programmes we have at the moment. I understand that in the past year, 18 more training programmes were to come on stream. It was mentioned that it is planned to have 70 by the end of this year. Could she give me a timeline for the remainder? Some very interesting programmes were mentioned, such as farm management and equestrian studies. That is of particular interest for me with Mountbellew Agricultural College and linking in with the technological universities. It would be of interest to farmers. Farm relief schemes could help older farmers to bring in some of the students coming through such apprenticeship programmes. I would be interested in looking at the possibility that they could also support a number of farmers in a particular region.

Dr. Trant also mentioned 8,300 employers. That is fantastic altogether. I do not know if she has anything to add to what Mr. Brownlee has said, but this question might be more for her. It relates to the registration of 10,000 apprenticeships per year. Are we roughly at around 8,000 at the moment? I know registrations were ramped up this year and last year. Perhaps I do not understand it, but how are the planned 10,000 apprenticeships broken down between employers that want to take on apprentices, colleges that bring people in and placements?

I apologise as I do not have much to ask of Dr. Murphy from QQI, but if she would like to add anything to those points, she is very welcome to do so. I will start with Mr. Conlon, then Mr. Brownlee and Dr. Trant.