Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to contribute to this debate on behalf of the Labour Party. I welcome the Minister's commitments in regard to support for apprentices in Tara Mines. We hope there will not be the kind of lay-offs initially unilaterally announced by the company. We also hope progress can be made on all of those jobs and a solution will be found to the problems facing Tara Mines, with the support of the Government and the trade unions. I am pleased that the local ETB and SOLAS, with others, are supporting the apprentices.

I recognise the Minister's sincere commitment to the development of apprenticeships as a viable and equal career option. We all share a determination to overcome what the Minister rightly described as the snobbishness in the approach taken historically, and certainly over the past few years, to apprenticeships, traineeships and further education sector in general. We know the apprenticeship system is strong and can create viable careers. We know how important the apprenticeship and traineeship systems are for our economy, our ambitions and the ambitions people have for their careers.

I am zealous when it comes to the skills agenda. As an advanced economy, we should not and will not compete in terms of our competitiveness on tax. We have to compete on the agenda of skills, talent, investment in education and lifelong training, as well as in-work training and beyond. That is where we should be building on our advantage.

I want to note two great advances made in my own area recently. One is the development of the new apprenticeship centre on the south side of Drogheda. The second is the development by the ETB, with the support of SOLAS, of the advanced manufacturing centre of excellence, AMCE, in Dundalk. These are two very significant and visionary projects.

Before I raise a particular issue on a specific new generation apprenticeship programme, I will refer to the significant surpluses, in excess of €1 billion, in the National Training Fund. That is likely to double over the next couple of years. We must have a serious conversation about how we deploy those resources in the next period, especially to support SMEs with digital transformation, just transition and the challenges our economy and society face in regard to artificial intelligence, AI. While that is a conversation for another day, it is an issue I wanted to raise. We should all be conscious of how we deploy that asset cleverly over the next period to serve our economy and society and the needs of workers and businesses.

Anomalies have been brought to the attention of the national apprenticeship office, SOLAS and the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, by trade union colleagues in respect of the current construction regulations and the ability of those who complete the new consortium-led scaffolding apprenticeship in December 2023 and who attain a QQI Level 5 qualification to legally scaffold. I will read directly from the Minister's reply to a parliamentary question from the end of May, in which he stated:

It has been identified that under the current licencing regulations, scaffolding apprentices, having completed two years of training, will be required to submit to a CSCS assessment in order to obtain the CSCS Card that will allow them to work on-site.

Currently, the existing regulations for scheduled activities are being revised. The skills training and assessment for all activities currently covered by the existing regulations will be updated under the Construction Safety Licencing Bill, including scaffolding. The Bill is expected to be enacted at the end of 2023.

While the scaffolding apprenticeship is currently a recognised apprenticeship qualification, this Bill creates the potential for it to be included as a licensed activity under this model.

It is noted that, with the timing of the first apprenticeship graduates and the enactment of the Bill, there is a time gap. My Department is working with partners and a possible solution has been identified. This is being finalised and I expect to be able to share further details shortly.

That reply issued on 25 May. I am now advised that the solution that was being worked on by officials in the Department is not now viable and we still have the same problem I outlined in that parliamentary question at the end of May. There are time pressures involved here. We cannot have a situation where there is a time lag in terms of apprentices completing the two-year programme and having to wait an undetermined amount of time to be legally able to scaffold. That would undermine confidence in the programme, impact on the confidence and trust of the apprentices and result in fewer workers on sites in the middle of a housing crisis. As the new generation of apprenticeships is not part of the CSCS model, an amendment is needed to be made to the construction regulation to recognise a new national craft card, NCC, for safety-critical tasks. Those who did shorter and less advanced training than was previously required under the apprenticeship programme are entitled to work on sites. However, under the new apprenticeships model, with its more advanced apprenticeship two-year programme, we could end up in the bizarre situation where, because of the time lag and complexities involved, newly qualified skilled workers will not be able to legally work until this problem is fixed.

I submitted a further parliamentary question - it is due for answer today but I do not have it yet - in which I asked whether the Minister, in light of that we now know, will introduce a ministerial order that will recognise the new generation apprenticeships that are and will progress from the CSCS model that has been in place to the more advanced apprenticeship model, as it appears that the solution identified previously is no longer a runner. This is the real issue. I know the officials in the Department and the Minister are aware of it. I wanted to place this information on the record. It is a complex problem but there is a solution and I would be interested in hearing the Minister's view on it.

I acknowledge the Minister's recognition of the good work of the Labour Party group in the Seanad in bringing forward a Bill on the application of the national minimum wage to apprentices. No worker should be paid anything less than the adult rate of the national minimum wage. The idea that we want to encourage more apprentices to come into the system is fatally undermined by the poor pay experienced by apprentices in the first couple of years of their apprenticeship. The Minister acknowledges that and I look forward to his comments on it later.

See this speech in context