Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Covid crisis has demonstrated the need and opportunity for radical reform in education, further education and higher education. I ask the Tánaiste to make a world-class apprenticeship platform a key part of the recovery plan post Covid. We need to stop blaming parents as hampering the development of apprenticeships. As Gaeilge, cá bhfuil an fhís chomhpháirteach le haghaidh an phrintísigh? Where is the collective will to provide equal esteem for apprenticeships? We do not have a system where the senior cycle allows people to develop a portfolio leading to apprenticeship, we have no Central Applications Office, CAO, in respect of apprenticeships, no quota from the public service for apprentices and no collective agreements incorporating apprenticeships. We need to inject urgency into the glacial reform of the leaving certificate and to put lead into the pencil of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science., Deputy Harris, and the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, because without that, we will not deliver this programme.

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