Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Apprenticeships must be employer driven and employers must be involved. On capacity, it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. We needed to find out what was wanted and needed and we put significant effort, through various Departments such as the Departments of Education and Skills and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, into getting people interested in this issue and to get people to make proposals. We have those proposals now and the apprenticeship council must assess which of the 86 submissions are viable and needed. The council will make recommendations on which and how many proposals should result in full apprenticeships and may make recommendations that some are suited to a different route, such as a traineeship.

When we receive the report in June, we must assess what is required to make this happen. Many of the proposals will be acted on this year or next. No curriculum for them has been developed yet as they are still proposals. The apprenticeship council, SOLAS and the Department will assess how many can be implemented. The Deputy asked what was our target, but we do not have a specific target in each area. We know that in sectors such as haulage, there is a requirement for approximately 1,000 extra drivers per year over the next four or five years. This has been assessed by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We must decide how many of these positions should be filled through apprenticeships.

SOLAS will monitor the numbers required in all sectors and we will not repeat what happened previously, where there were far too many apprenticeships in some sectors, leaving people high and dry when the crash came. The situation will be managed nationally by SOLAS, which will work with the ETBs, institutes of technology and other providers to get the numbers right. We are trying to respond to the need, but first we needed to get the proposals and examine them to see what is needed. We may require legislation for this, but we will certainly require extra resources. We must find the way to make that happen and intend to do that.

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