Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. On the phases, in September, we had 1,000 in phase 6 and 2,000 in phase 4, but the vast majority - 7,000 - were in phase 2 at that time. In one sense, when the Minister of State gives the figures and says that phases 4 and 6 will be cleared by April, I obviously welcome that, but the vast majority are in phase 2. We need to be careful of that.

It is positive that apprenticeship registrations are up, and this is to be welcomed. The Minister of State should, however, be careful of what he takes credit for unless he wants to accept the blame for the collapse of registration numbers in the past. Craft apprenticeship registrations reflect demand in the construction sector, but the Minister of State cannot explain why 10,000 people were unable to access the off-the-job education component because the target was surpassed by 300. This happened months after people had been taken back to work at full capacity. How can we have insufficient capacity when the Minister of State has spent the past year and a half telling us he was ramping up capacity to deal with the backlog? Things just do not just add up. The true figure is even higher, because his Department removes apprentices from the waiting lists when they get the start date for the training and not when they actually start.

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