John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy and I would welcome a further meeting with him on that suggestion. I regularly meet companies that are interested in apprenticeships. If we look at the basic apprenticeships we usually would have spoken about, such as for plasterers, bricklayers, carpenters and so on, it is interesting that we are now moving into apprenticeships for industrial electrical engineers, manufacturing technicians, polymer processing manufacturing technicians, engineers up to level 7, OEM technicians, telecoms field technicians, ICT network engineers, HGV drivers and property services apprentices. There is a whole list that runs from commis chef to sous chef, craft butcher, executive chef, accounting technician and so on.

All the time we are looking for ideas and proposals, whether they come from Deputies in the House, whose opinions I value, or from outside bodies that have an interest in creating apprenticeships. The Deputy's proposal is certainly worth considering and I would value a meeting with him, perhaps next week, to discuss it further. If there is merit in it, which there appears to be, having listened to the Deputy, we may very well be able to take it on board.

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