Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ireland must have a fully functioning apprenticeship model but unfortunately we are lagging far behind many EU countries in terms of both scale and diversity. Recently the Joint Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation conducted a comprehensive engagement with all relevant stakeholders on the cost of doing business. The Ministers of State at the Department of Education and Skills, Deputies Mitchell O'Connor and Halligan, will be very aware of the work of that committee and it is appropriate that they are in the Chamber today because there must be collaboration between the Departments of Education and Skills and Business, Enterprise and Innovation in the promotion of apprenticeships.

The Irish Farmers Association, IFA, Construction Industry Federation, Restaurants Association of Ireland and the Irish Hotels Federation said the skills shortage was a significant issue for their sectors and cited the lack of apprenticeships. One issue identified is that since the dismantling of CERT in 2003 there has been no single organisation with sole responsibility for hospitality and tourism training policy and this has left a huge gap in that sector. The committee also heard that within the construction industry certain skills such as plumbing and electrical work continue to come through. However, wet skills such as plastering and block-laying remain scarce. The IFA also raised concerns that there will be a shortage of managers in the future and that there is a need for an apprenticeship scheme for people to progress to become farm managers and owners. Having listened to those at the coal face I believe the apprenticeship is chronically underdeveloped and requires the Government to be aggressively proactive in getting additional apprenticeship occupations established.

A special emphasis is also required to promote female participation in apprenticeships with women representing only 2% of the apprentice population. Although progress has been made in recent years with a bursary in place for employers who recruit women apprentices more needs to be done to support groups that are vastly under-represented. In the UK for example, 54% of apprenticeship starts in 2016–17 were women compared with 2% here.

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