Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

That is a really good question. The research we commissioned at the end of last year, which I referenced in my opening statement, was pretty much prepared on the assumption of the status quowhereby MMC levels would remain relatively static.

It was based on an assumption that residential construction would continue as is. The report states that if we can ramp up the use of MMC, the scale of demand for the apprenticeship and traditional skilled construction worker pipeline will diminish. That is one of the ways one can get to the figure of 50,000 figure by 2030.

The other potential way to do it relates to work permits but, regardless of that, we need to ramp up capacity for craft apprenticeship provision. We are already dealing with significant waiting lists because of Covid, when we had to close for nine of the first 15 months. We have got the number waiting more than six months down from approximately 8,500 to approximately 4,500. That is still too many people waiting to get into training, however. We increased capacity in phase 2 of the job training, which is what Mr. Dalton and his colleagues run on behalf of FET, from 4,500 pre Covid to 5,600 last year. We are trying to take that to 8,000 this year to address the backlog and ensure that, by the end of the year, no one will have to wait more than six months. We are investing in new workshops and taking on more instructors. We now have electrical hubs in Drogheda, Tullamore and Limerick. Thanks to the goodwill of SIPTU and our instructors, we moved from a two-intake model to a three-intake one as part of a Covid emergency response. They did that out of goodwill. We are currently discussing with the unions how we can embed that as an ongoing model for the delivery of craft apprenticeships. Obviously, it allows us to deliver a 50% increase in capacity, which is important.

The Deputy referred to the wet trades. It is a dilemma because the demand for wet trade apprentices now is very low. Employers do not believe it takes four years to train a painter and decorator or a plasterer, so they have tended to follow more informal in-house training. We need to find a way to get away from that. We need to consider the length of those programmes and how we can run them more effectively and efficiently and get industry to buy in. It is a skilled profession and we do not want to have a bunch of unskilled self-trained people involved in it. We are actively working on that with our partners.