Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)

Go raibh maith agat. SOLAS mentioned its surveys earlier. I contacted Connect trade union, which did its own survey of 802 participants and some of the findings are pretty stark. I will provide some of them. Some 46% reported getting paid less than €7 per hour of work during a stage of their apprenticeships, more than 90% reported being paid less than the minimum wages, which as we know is €12.70, during a stage of their apprenticeships, and 26% say their employer has paid them below the agreed minimum pay rates, which can already be below the State minimum wage. Over 95% believed apprenticeships should be paid at least the statutory minimum wage, while 96% said the training allowances paid to apprenticeships are insufficient and need to be increased to take into account increases in cost of living. Indeed, some of those training allowances have not been increased for many years. Some 29.7% had delays of completion for one year; 23.7% had delays of 1.5 years or more and 78% think the Department of further and higher education is doing a bad job in running the apprenticeship systems. A total of 20% stated that they had left or been dismissed by the company, while 38% had been asked to complete work unrelated to their apprenticeship - this is a red flag because this could be leading down the road of cheap labour - or been used as labourers waiting for off-site hours to be completed. A further 45% said they had no workplace assessor to ensure they were attaining the correct standards. It has been stated, as I heard on “Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin”, that cuts to classes in electrical are coming in July. Is that true or has it just been thrown out there? If it is true, will it affect the backlog? We should call for Government intervention in the area of collective bargaining. The witnesses may have a say on that. Given all this, how do they expect us and those waiting to come in to apprenticeships to have any confidence they will get a good rate of pay, be able to complete their apprenticeship within the timeframe, be able to afford to rent and live off-site on training and not be used as cheap labour while waiting to complete their apprenticeship?

If the money is not there, why is it not there as it comes from the national training?