Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We will see that. It seems the right thing to do. I just wanted to understand what exactly that line meant.

As other speakers mentioned, the Bill also includes a provision which enables the State to give full effect to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict by deleting provisions relating to the enlistment of persons under the age of 18. As I understand it, this again simply reflects existing practice. I am certainly not in any way advocating that those under 18 be recruited into the Defence Forces but one thing did occur to me. In the past, the Defence Forces had a very good reputation for taking in and training apprentices, school-leavers, and giving them incredibly good skills. Is that precluded by the Bill? Does that happen now or does one have to reach the age of 18? In the past, if people were just not suited to academic life and wanted to become an Air Corps mechanic or something like that at 17, they could be trained in. I do not know whether such apprenticeships are excluded.

Across government, and under previous Governments, there is now a great emphasis on the provision of apprenticeships and on avoiding having only one track, that of academic training. It is sought to give people skills bases in a whole range of disciplines. We now encourage every big company to take on apprentices and the State itself should be part of that. When the Minister is replying, will he make some mention of how apprenticeships are structured within the Army and of how it is envisaged that the old apprentice corps will hopefully not only be maintained but expanded? This will give trainees further training and proper accreditation at the end so that their skills bases will be formidable, enabling them to find gainful employment in the general economy.

As has been referenced, when the Bill was first published in January, it included other sections relating to the re-enlistment of formerly enlisted persons. As the Minister knows, these measures have now been encompassed in the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020, which the Houses passed in March. They will therefore be taken out of this Bill, although they were included in the original Bill. It is, however, a salient fact that so few have re-enlisted. I thought the Minister might be about the contradict the numbers given to the House with regard to people who had re-enlisted, although they were given by way of parliamentary question. It seems-----

See this speech in context