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

I thank the Deputy. We all share the same ambitions and it is good to see that those ambitions are, in the main, being realised. The apprenticeship action plan set out a target to achieve 10,000 new apprenticeship registrations per annum by 2025. In the year 2021, a record 8,607 new apprentices were registered on the system. That is an increase of nearly 40% on the comparator year, namely, 2019, which was, as the Deputy is aware, prior to the pandemic.

On the backlog, we have the added problem, which is a good one, of a good surge of new people coming into the system. The clearance projections have fallen and risen again due to, as I just mentioned, the number of people signing up. In August 2021, there were 11,859 in the backlog. In January, that fell to 9,500. In February, it fell further to 7,700. It has risen slightly again due to the surge of new apprentices coming into the system.

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