Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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The Acting Chair's points about addressing the backlog are well made. It is not abating. As a result, we set up an emergency group that consisted of SOLAS, the National Apprenticeship Office and representatives of our education and training boards and of course staff organisations. It is chaired by the Department. The group is working to ensure the delivery of the required additional training capacity to reduce phase 2 waiting times and to right-size the system's capacity overall to match demand. SOLAS and the National Apprenticeship Office are leading on developing a series of options that will significantly reduce the backlog by the end of 2024. That includes increasing the capacity of our education and training boards to provide a total of 6,153 places in 2024, a temporary and emergency delivery of 640 phase 2 places through higher education institutions and about 150 places gained by subcontracting of training to colleges in Northern Ireland.

It is acutely on our radar and we are doing everything possible at our disposal to try to address the situation. There are resources available to it. It is a capacity issue as well, which I think is fair to say. The capacity has to be built. The training places and the staff have to be made available. The Acting Chair is probably aware of this, but as part of our emergency response post Covid, there was an agreement with staff representatives in the education and training boards to provide a third intake. Previously, it was a biannual intake. That was challenging as well because there were capacity issues. Staff have their terms and conditions also, which have to be respected and there has to be a process of negotiation between them.