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

I thank the Minister for his response. In 2016 the Government set a target of 9,000 annual apprenticeship registrations by 2020 but here we are in 2023, and we still have not reached that target. The Government set a new target of 10,000 in 2020. The Minister has said that we are making progress towards that but we have not even reached the old target. Back in 2016 we did not even understand the desperate need for construction skills that we would have today.

The Government has not substantially increased apprenticeships in the public and semi-State sector. Does every county council across the State employ apprentices? Have we a measure of that? The ESB appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science recently. The apprenticeship model used by the ESB in terms of involving national school, secondary school and beyond really needs to be extended to the local authorities.

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