Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his extensive engagement with us. He will have seen the very strong commitment the members of the committee have to furthering the work of the Citizens' Assembly. From the array of issues raised, he will see just how closely we are watching these particular recommendations and seek to ensure their implementation. I thank him for referring to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution which followed from the Citizens' Assembly because that is the committee we are taking as our model. We are not re-opening the substantive policy issues but rather looking at implementation of the 45 recommendations that make up that blueprint for gender equality.

I want to pick up on recommendation 30 in particular. We have spoken about this in our engagement today in terms of strengthening existing programmes to encourage women into STEM and apprenticeships. Colleagues have raised a number of issues on that. I am conscious, as the Minister has said, that some progress has been made but there are still far too few women in apprenticeships. The Minister gave us a figure of 1,482 women now in apprenticeships. The proportion is still very low-----