Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With the Chair's indulgence, we are seeing an increasing amount of certainty in the construction sector. People are going into work on jobs that are two, three or four years in duration on site. There are individual contractors, subcontractors and people working directly for developers and in-house. We see this not only in housing but in the commercial sector with large-scale building. We speak of developments in pharmaceuticals and the tech industry. These are great opportunities which will be complemented by the sectoral employment order because people will know when they go into these roles to fill these contracts that they have very good minimum rates that will not be changing as well as all of the other employment rights and benefits that Senator Ahearn has mentioned.

When we are running at a 4.2% unemployment rate it takes every measure possible to meet the workforce needs. This means looking into those who are long-term unemployed and those who are not in a position to work but would like to work and need the workplace to be more welcoming and open to them. Much of this can be due to issues regarding flexibility, such as with regard to caring for a relative or a loved one, and maximising the potential of those with disabilities. In the past month I had a very productive meeting with Senator Conway and the National Council for the Blind of Ireland. Its representatives spoke about its new apprenticeship programme in the retail sector for those with vision loss and difficulties. This is a good model that we will be looking to a lot more to maximise the working age population and get to people who are still underrepresented in the workforce and in certain sectors. Certainly the varied skilled and unskilled roles in the construction sector offer great opportunities.