Dr. Mary-Liz Trant:

The Deputy’s first question was about potential apprentices and whether they can find employers. One of the things we did late last year was to set up on apprenticeship.ie a directory that publishes by apprenticeship, every employer hiring apprentices in every county. Guidance counsellors have found that very useful, along with potential apprentices as well. We update it every month. That has been very useful.

Every year, there is a big World Skills Ireland event in the RDS, which is hugely successful. About 30,000 people go through the doors. We hear constantly over those three days from many, transition year, fifth year and sixth year students about their interest and the challenge of finding an employer.

About 10,000 employers are active at any one stage. That is a tiny fraction of all the employers in the country. We definitely need to increase that number. We have organised things like the One More Job campaign, which targets micro-employers and asks them to take on either one apprentice or one more apprentice. That has been very successful, but we also need to look at incentives.

It was mentioned by another Deputy that there needs to be more encouragement for employers to take on apprentices, whether that be one or one more, to increase the numbers. There is definitely a demand out there that is not being met. Ultimately, apprentices need an employer.