Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

People who pass the junction of Gardiner Street and Sean McDermott Street and see the magnificent new student accommodation that was built in under two years will find it hard to believe. I could refer to 12 other locations throughout the city where the same is happening. However, I want to ask the Taoiseach why so little progress is being made in respect of taking on young men and women as apprentices and trainees. I have the height of respect for Michael Stone, the chairman of the task force. He has great experience in employing apprentices and a great track record. He is known to people for that. In the context of the Taoiseach's office and its responsibility in the area of oversight, what is causing progress to be so slow? Very shortly, we will not have workers to build houses because we do not have apprentices. On the figures that the Minister for Education and Skills issued recently in respect of the additional carpenters entering training, can the Taoiseach guess what the figure is for the whole of Ireland? It is approximately 1,100. That is a joke.

I know the Taoiseach's background is very much a professional one but people get great careers and businesses out of taking the apprenticeship route. I cannot understand why the task force is not concentrating on this, with the support of the Taoiseach's Department. It will be necessary to put some kind of a rocket under the people who are organising apprenticeships in order that the kids in the area in question, including all the girls who are showing great interest in becoming electricians, get apprenticeships. The demand is there. People like Joe Costello, my former colleague in the north inner city, will tell the Taoiseach that because he has decades of experience of working particularly in education and training in the north inner city.

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