Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the debate on this Bill. It contains some practical and worthwhile changes to the current regime. The emphasis of the Bill is also a welcome leap forward in that many of its sections are pragmatic and more reflective of where people are at as regards skills and the need to maintain safety as a key component of work on a construction or quarry site. In this respect, I note sections 24 to 33 which deal with the establishment of a licensing model for workers based on an assessment of competence to replace the accredited training model. I know the Bill in the round deals with the issue of the Safe Pass, which has become yet again another example of needless red tape and a bureaucratic nightmare that has to be navigated by workers every four years.

We must find a way to help the construction sector to fulfil its potential given the key role it plays in delivering capital infrastructure and, more important, housing. The scale of the challenge and the need for construction workers were laid out clearly in the labour demand estimates for Ireland's national housing targets for the period 2021 to 2030 produced by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs. The report stated that based on profile, total labour demand from housing construction is estimated to rise from approximately 40,000 full-time equivalent workers at its 2019 to 2020 level to 67,500 workers by the middle of the decade. This represents an estimated additional 27,500 workers over five years. Total demand is estimated to peak at more than 80,000 workers towards the end of the decade. Where will all these workers come from if we cannot make construction an attractive and viable employment opportunity for young people, including our engineering and architectural graduates? From meeting apprentices at meetings of the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science who spoke about the wet trades, poor pay and so on that all must change in the apprenticeship system if we are to get more workers into construction. I hope there will be moves and initiatives to pay those people properly while they are doing apprenticeships.

We have done some significant work at the joint committee on the need to improve apprenticeship numbers and fundamentally reform the model of education we are currently obsessed with, which is focused on academic achievement and says that college is the route preferred over an apprenticeship. I hope that will continue to change. I will speak about Laois-Offaly Education and Training Board, which is in my constituency. It is doing fantastic work in promoting apprenticeships and the ESB is also reaching out to secondary schools in an attempt to increase the number of apprentices who will be badly needed. We have a chronic lack of skilled personnel and as the need becomes more acute, that deficit will be keenly felt. I understand from the expert group report that if we are to meet our housing and construction targets, we will need the following additional numbers of skilled workers by the end of the decade: 2,500 additional carpenters and joiners; 1,900 additional electricians; 1,300 additional plumbers; 1,100 additional painters and decorators; and an additional 700 bricklayers and masons. I will conclude on that point and cede to my colleagues.

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