Mr. Tom Parlon:

I wish to make just a few general remarks. First, it is very positive news that both the Irish Hotels Federation and the construction industry have such a positive projection for the industry and that we are seeking 100,000 people and the Hotels Federation is seeking a large number as well. It reflects the what is happening in tourism, the growth of the economy and what is happening in construction.

Clearly, construction had, and has, a great record in apprenticeships and there was an apprenticeship culture in the industry. There were 27,000 apprenticeships at the peak. Clearly, we went over a cliff, but there are new skills now. We have been involved with the ETBs through Solas. Formwork is significant in that many of the new buildings and office blocks are built with mass concrete and forms need to be made for those. We have been involved in traineeships, which do not take the same length of time but need significant involvement by employers and on-site, on-the-job work. The trainees get intensive training. A number of companies provide these traineeships, and Deputy Burton referred to one. Michael Stone, our former president, now of Designer Group, has appeared before the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Designer Group has hundreds of apprentices on the M&E side but also in steel fixing, dry lining and formwork. Specialist contractors need such people. The flexibility is just coming now through Solas and the ETBs to provide this specialist training.

In response to the representative from BATU, times have changed. There was a time when individual contractors hired workers with all the different skills. Now it is entirely specialist skills that are sought, whether groundworks, steelworks, formwork, blocklaying or bricklaying. The negative perception of these trades is odd because bricklayers and blocklayers can practically name their price. Most work on piecework. These are highly paid skills but my members are having a major problem getting those skills. Likewise, we see there are nearly 1,000 electrical contractors at present and, I think, about 500 in plumbing and 300 or 400 in carpentry, yet there are only perhaps less than 20 in the wet trades. Unfortunately, designers and architects are now designing bricks and blocks out of buildings on site in order to get over this problem. However, there are many new skills there.

We need to be fast on our feet. The industry is changing. We need to embrace the innovations. We now have new building regulations. We are nearing NZEB, nearly zero-energy buildings, standards, which represent an entirely new quality of housing in terms of energy efficiency and so on. We must move. In fairness to Solas, the ETBs and the technical colleges, I think we are in a good place. We are moving in the right direction. Our industry and our members need to keep up with this innovation as well. I think there is a culture of individual employers, be they big or small, committing themselves to taking on apprentices for a particular period. It is a changing landscape. It is the specialist blocklayers and bricklayers, plumbers and M&E contractors who need to employ these people now. They are finding they need to do so because the quality of the work of people coming in from the rest of Europe and from elsewhere outside of the country is not nearly as good as that of the homegrown craftspeople. Just as was said earlier, if a blocklayer, bricklayer or electrician is taken on and trained up, chooses to go on to third level and works his or her way up to be a foreman, he or she is a terrific asset and, generally, very loyal to the company. We are therefore very keen to support this area. However, the unfashionableness of apprenticeships or, as Deputy Nolan said, the fact that apprentices are undervalued is an issue. Regarding how we and the Department of Education promote apprenticeships, everything leads to third level, and colleges are very good at promoting themselves and filling all their places. We need a counter-campaign to encourage people into the skills and crafts because there is a very good lifestyle and a very good livelihood for them there.

Our industry has suffered a little like the tourism industry but much more and with massive peaks and troughs. We reached an outlandishly high level of activity before the peak and then fell to an outrageously low level. We need to get that levelled out. We have been looking to Government lately to get a commitment to a construction sector that would have cross-party support, a fairly level and fairly constant capital investment programme, a fairly constant housebuilding programme and a fairly constant refurbishment programme, all the while continuing to be able to attract foreign direct investment. The optimum level of activity would be about 10% to 12% of GDP. We have been down to 6% and were previously up to 23%. The figure is now rising. By 2020, our DKM projection, to which Mr. Carey referred, suggests we will be worth about €20 billion and about 10% of GDP. The challenge for everyone is, when we get to that level, to try to hold it. Then the people who qualify in skills or otherwise and have jobs in the industry will be able to be maintained in the industry.