Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Aylward for his continuing service to the State. It is welcome that he is getting involved with SOLAS. I will not ask him questions. He is clearly qualified for the job and determining whether that is so is not our role anyway. For what it is worth, I will share some of my views arising from what we have dealt with in recent years.

The back-slapping about apprenticeships has to stop. There have been some improvements but they are coming from a low base. The challenge is monumental but it must be met. I am confident Mr. Aylward and the new chief executive can do so. That is no reflection on SOLAS. It needs Government direction and direction from society in general, which is not forthcoming. It needs to come from the media, which continue to publish college league tables with no regard whatsoever to apprenticeships, which are equivalent to degrees, as Mr. Aylward has outlined. A level 8 apprenticeship is equivalent to an honours degree and a level 9 is equivalent to a masters degree. There needs to be a change in direction. I do not know how this would be done. Should we call them apprenticeship degrees? I do not know but we need to do something different to give people the sense that the qualifications are exactly the same. We have to get on the page. I do not know what writer said that he or she would never encourage someone to do an apprenticeship until official Ireland's children were doing apprenticeships. People are still of the view that a college degree is required. Society in general has failed to change that perception. Mr. Aylward needs to take a radical approach. We are almost at the floor with regard to the number of apprentices this country is producing. Statements issued by the Department of Education and Skills have said the overall number of apprentices who ever qualified in Ireland is more than 100,000, which is a meaningless figure. The figures have improved but they need to improve dramatically.

I look forward to the strategy with regard to the further education and training colleges. At the moment, their overall direction is a mishmash. They are all doing very good work individually but there is no shared direction. There seems to be a block on the construction of such colleges. I mentioned one in Dunboyne in my own constituency that is awaiting this strategy. There is effectively a block on the construction of colleges, the development of the sector, and the education it attempts to provide. They simply cannot cope with the numbers. That needs to change.

A fundamental change needs to be made with regard to developing new apprenticeships. The current system is essentially employer-led. A call is put out and employers or organisations are sought to put together apprenticeships. That will not work. We cannot continue with the low numbers coming forward. We need to put other pathways in place to develop new apprenticeships. That is the only way numbers will actually increase. I put forward a proposal to start an apprenticeship scheme in the Oireachtas such as exists in the House of Commons. I ask the Oireachtas to copy and paste that scheme. I would love it if Mr. Aylward got involved with the Clerk of the Dáil and the Ceann Comhairle to look at the House of Commons scheme and get something similar off the ground here. There are a number of internship programmes in the Oireachtas but we could also have apprenticeship programmes in cooking, media, or other jobs that exist within the Oireachtas.

If we start doing that within the public sector, it will start to branch out into the private sector. People want to get with the programme. The public sector is not coming up to the mark with regard to the provision of apprenticeships. Some of the semi-State bodies do fantastic work in employing people and always have, but Departments need to get involved. Mr. Aylward's background and experience provide a real opportunity to get the public sector much more involved in the provision of apprenticeships so that the talk coming out of the mouths of Ministers, ourselves and others - I am including everyone in this - will be met with action. If the public sector sets an example, this will work. We need to champion apprenticeships. The media need to be involved as well. I urge the Irish Independent, The Irish Times, The Sunday Times and so on to consider how they could include apprenticeships in their league tables. It is not good enough simply to have an asterisk to say that other people do apprenticeships. Maybe SOLAS can provide some help in that regard. I do not know. The media would probably need assistance.

We are aware of another issue that the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, highlighted. This is the issue of the world apprenticeship champions who contested the world apprenticeship games. They were given very little media coverage on RTÉ. That is a shame. I really hope the Minister of State's intervention will change RTÉ's approach and that they will be given a greater profile. We are delighted to have them here. They are such an example to everybody. The more examples we give, the more readily we can achieve a change in respect of apprenticeships, thereby changing our education system. It is really important to remember that we are starting from a very low base. The challenge ahead of Mr. Aylward is absolutely massive. If I can do anything to assist him, I will. That has to happen. The number of female apprentices is also shocking. It is the one part of society in which there is an absolutely unbelievable gender imbalance. It is unprecedented. I would love to see further action taken in that regard. I am sure it will be.