Ms Meadhbh Costello:

I will start with the Senator's first question about funding numbers. That is data I would not have to hand or on file but we have seen an increase in funding for the apprenticeship programme over the past number of years but a lot of that funding went into addressing the backlogs that were created as a result of Covid. The specific areas where we see more funding being needed would be to prevent that backlog. What I mean by that is that there were backlogs during phase 2 as a result of Covid but there was also a concern earlier this year that we might experience backlogs again at later stages. This would be due to the capacity for education and training centres to actually deliver the off-the-job training phases. We need to make sure there is certainty in the system and enough funding in place to resource the capacity of apprentices who will pass through every one of those phases. That includes ensuring training centres have adequate funding and also that they have adequate funding to update their infrastructure, for example, if we need to train people on new types of technologies.

On the issue of quality assurance, the surveys we saw from both apprentices and apprentice employers indicate that there is a really broad satisfaction level with the apprenticeship system. One of the areas related to quality assurance that pops up now and again is that sometimes the curricula are not up to date with what industry is doing. That really comes down to the fact that technology is changing so quickly in businesses that you almost need to change the curriculum year on year. This is not only a problem for the apprenticeship system, which is in some ways more capable of dealing with the issue because it is co-developed with employers. In a way, they are a lot closer to the issues on the ground so there is a chance for the quality assurance and the reflections in the curricula to better meet their needs.

On the Senator's last point on disability, a lot of employers are unaware of some of the supports out there that could be used to support people with disabilities into employment. There needs to do better promotion of some of the individual supports, whether it is for people who are coming into apprenticeships or more generally into the employment system. We need to examine how we can promote some of those supports. At IBEC, we do a lot of work with our members through our diversity forum to share resources that are available through the Department but also through some of the individual NGOs that work with different community groups in this regard.