Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. That is interesting. I will do a bit more research on the financial support of apprentices. On the capacity issue, I have spoken to as many people as possible since taking on this role. From what I understand, some capacity is not being used. Perhaps the Minister could investigate that. Sometimes it is necessary to pop into the centres and seeing for oneself whether capacity is available. People tell me capacity is available and is not being used. It is definitely worth looking at.

The Minister stated that bringing on more instructors is not the key issue at this point, but it is also something we need to look at. We are trying to get people to move into this from quite well-paid jobs. It involves a significant pay cut so that is something that needs to be looked at. Especially as people are getting older, if they are still working on building sites, they probably would not mind that move. On the different types of apprenticeships that need to be considered, such as modern methods of construction and offshore wind, what kind of apprenticeships are available for offshore wind? I know we have some for onshore wind. What plans are there for apprenticeships in the future?

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