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

We discussed this earlier. Across 2021 and 2022, €37 million has been provided to address the significant backlog which arose due to the Covid pandemic and the restrictions that were imposed throughout various lockdowns that significantly impacted the off the job training available to apprentices. SOLAS and our ETBs are providing extra capacity and are hiring extra trainers. They are doing everything they can to reduce the backlog. Earlier, I outlined the specific numbers in terms of how that will be reduced over the next number of months. We are making good headway on that.

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