Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Local authorities need social workers in many cases. Ms Duggan outlined a number of matters on which Tusla is collaborating with a university in Scotland. It is also dealing with the Department of further and higher education.

Mention was made of apprenticeships, which would be brilliant to be brought on stream. I am not sure how we will get around this. It is a societal issue. It is about apprenticeships in general. Some other European countries, Germany in particular, use apprenticeships - including for the trade of two of the witnesses, namely accountancy - to allow people to train and earn, which is a great ethos. You get a great quality workforce out of it. There is a stigma about apprenticeships in this country. The first thing every young one and young fella wants is to go to college. Some of them go to college and it continues on and on. We need to get people into the workforce earlier. In some cases, we need to use the apprenticeship model. How do we get around the stigma around apprenticeships in the case of social workers? It would be a great opportunity if it could be used.