Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I pointed out to the Deputy, the new national apprenticeship office is to be established and a director appointed this month. That office emerges from the apprenticeship action plan and will act as an umbrella and overseer of the entire apprenticeship landscape. Allied to the national apprenticeship office will be the national apprenticeship alliance, a stakeholder group which will support that office with respect to its future direction and will also support it in terms of the demands of our current apprenticeship offering. It will also deal with issues of dropout that the Deputy raised. Through the Department we have increased the funding and resourcing going into our apprenticeship offering across the apprenticeship landscape and we intend to do that going forward because we recognise promoting apprenticeships and mainstreaming them into our FET sector is hugely important. All those actions which are in the apprenticeship action plan will hopefully address the key concern the Deputy has raised.

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