Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

I entirely agree with the Senator. In addition to the point he has made, which I agree with, I am sure he will agree with me about the dignity of giving people the opportunity to get a job, progress their career, go from job to job, earn more and feel they are having a good course through our economy, which has immeasurable benefits.

From the point of view of this particular economy, the economic inactivity levels we have now are exceptionally low. That is a feature of what we talked about earlier. Not only has our unemployment rate gone down but our labour market participation rate has gone up. To ensure we have more capacity available in our economy, even if a record number of people are at work, there are two things we need to do. The first is to use modern methods of construction. That sounds like a technical area, but I am convinced it is at the heart of how we can do more even though we have a high level of employment in our economy. I am amazed at the way homes are now being built in my constituency. It is completely different from how I used to see it happening. Where there were bricks from the bottom up, homes are now being erected. We must go down that route.

The second thing we must do relates to the apprenticeship programmes that are in place to help people early in their careers to get into high-paying jobs. A lot of work is now happening. It was kicked off by Deputy Harris, when he was the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and his successor as Minister, Deputy Lawless, is going to continue the work. The simple act of having apprenticeship programmes on the CAO portal will do untold good to help people get a better start in their careers. We are in a different place on activity levels. I agree with the Senator's analysis.