Ms Josephine Feehily:

I endorse everything Mr. Deenihan said about the apprenticeship piece. We are keen to move forward in that regard. We have a backlog. As far as I understand it, all of the technological universities and institutes of technology have serious backlogs. Some of that was created by Covid-19 and the associated space issues. I suspect we are going to run summer programmes this year, or that is being discussed, in order to make some inroads into that backlog. We could do more if we had some space. It is as simple as that. We are happy to do it.

The new national apprenticeship board is going to be important in terms of how it reorganises the traditional craft apprenticeships. We will certainly step up to whatever innovation comes from that consideration. We in TUS, as is the case in MTU, are putting on programmes to encourage apprentices to move above the traditional levels. Normally they are awarded up to about level 6. We are encouraging them to move up to levels 7, 8 and 9. There should not be any constraint on them. I asked the president about it recently and he said that I, as a woman, have experienced a glass ceiling whereas in the craft industries, the ceiling is made of concrete. There is no culture or tradition of moving up. We are keen to play a part in encouraging people to stick with a programme or to come back into education for apprenticeships.

There was some reference in the funding announcement to unitary skills at tertiary level. I am looking forward to seeing whether that helps us with the apprenticeship discussion. I am not sure what it is about. There is a new idea - it is certainly new to me, at least - of new generation apprenticeships for industry. They tend to be in less traditional sectors like financial services, insurance and so on. The concept of apprenticeship needs parity of esteem, and we will do this by broadening understanding far outside the traditional crafts sector.