Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will follow on from what the Cathaoirleach said there. That is a fair point in relation to Mr. McLoughlin. A big congratulations to him; it was a hell of a win. Possibly it has not been recognised to the degree that it should have been and that may say where we are in respect of apprenticeships. I have a great interest in apprenticeships, particularly electrical ones, because I am hoping that our Conor will start one in the near future. He did a PLC and that was all right. I am not sure going to college was the greatest move ever, and I thought it was not the greatest move ever at the time. That is something we need to get across the line and it is halfway there. In fairness, the one thing he showed over the summers was an ability to work on a building site. I was going to say I worked on building sites previously but some might say I showed up rather than worked a lot.

What we were talking about earlier were the various route maps. There are two things: traditional apprenticeships and newer apprenticeships. There are pre-apprenticeship courses, which are really good. That probably fits into what Dr. Gijs Van Houten said, namely, ability, opportunity and motivation. In an awful lot of cases, there are people who are not necessarily comfortable starting on a particular education path or getting into work. There are a lot of people who lack some of the skillsets. I know it is said that there are a fair number of soft skills that every kid coming through secondary school needs to have. Apprenticeships sometimes build them in, whether through dealing with the local further education college or whoever else from a point of view of providing them. It is vital that we highlight the necessity and importance of apprenticeships and that we make sure we provide those people with those skills. These are English, maths and communication skills.