Dr. Mary-Liz Trant:

I thank the Deputy for his comments and queries. On the extent to which employers are engaging in training for their employees, there is a plan to expand apprenticeship and traineeship that sets out the collective ambition between education and training on one side and the industry on the other to really build a very strong partnership to develop our workforce.

Apprenticeship - when a person is taken on and hired by an employer - is absolutely at the heart of that policy. We have ambitious targets out to 2020. We want to have the accumulative figure of 31,000 apprentices and more than 70 apprenticeship programmes. Achieving that will mean a huge step forward in that partnership and in the commitment and engagement to develop the workforce in Ireland.

The feedback we have received from employers who are now engaging in new programmes is really strong. They recognise the potential. These are employers, for example, in the tech and financial sectors, for whom apprenticeship is a whole new concept. They never used apprentices before; primarily, it has always been the graduate pool coming through. The employers are seeing the opportunity of taking on apprentices and developing, retaining and moulding them as they go on. They see how this is a powerful way of developing their workforce. SOLAS believes that this has huge potential. The Apprenticeship Council is gathering the feedback from employers on how it is going and taking on board a range of feedback. We are looking at such issues of affordability and costs. There is a big contribution by the State to apprenticeships. We look at how employers make their contribution also.

I would like to mention traineeships, which is not a direct feature for today but it is another part of the employer-education partnership. We also have targets for 2020 in the context of traineeships. Within education and training boards, ETBs, in the past year alone, 15 new traineeships have been introduced. This brings the total to approximately 50. Traineeships are shorter courses and they are built based on demand from employers, especially locally and regionally. There has been a very strong response. The ETBs have told us that there has been very positive engagement by local and regional employers in developing the traineeships to actually meet the needs of the workforce.

I shall now turn to a new policy, Skills to Advance, which supports lower skilled workers to upskill in work. This policy was launched earlier this year and we are implementing ti now working with the education and training boards. The Government has provided €11 million for 2019 to support that. It is another plank of that big shift into an approach now that has a very strong partnership between education and enterprise for the ongoing investment in and support for the workforce, especially when there are shortages of personnel.