Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

From listening to the Minister, Deputy Harris, earlier, we would be forgiven for thinking that all is going well with apprenticeships in Ireland, or at least that everything is going in the right direction. Yet, if you look at the figures for the intake of apprenticeships in construction, the situation is quite grave. In 2006, there were 475 people who entered apprenticeships in brick and stone laying. By 2021, that figure was down to just 148. In 2022, that was down to just 72.

It has been mentioned that Covid-19 affected the intake of construction apprenticeships. However, remember that in 2022, there was no closure of building sites due to Covid-19. All the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted in January 2022. One would therefore expect, all things being even, a considerable uptake in apprenticeships in 2022 compared with 2021. Instead, there was less than half the number of apprenticeships entering brick and stone laying in 2022 compared to 2021. There was only 15% of the 2006 figure. It is not just brick and stone laying where we have seen this. In 2006, 220 people entered plastering apprenticeships. That figure was down to just 38 in 2021 and down further again to just 31 last year.

Regarding carpentry and joinery, there were 1,905 people in 2006. This was down to just 847 in 2021 and down again to 713 people in 2022. In the area of painting and decorating, there were 160 people in 2006. That went down to just 43 in 2021 and just 23 in 2022. This was 14% of the 2006 figures. This is in the middle of a severe housing and homelessness crisis. People were sleeping in their cars last night because they cannot access social housing, affordable housing or even emergency accommodation. The same people will be sleeping in their cars tonight. Families will be sleeping in their cars tonight. There is a massive housing crisis and yet we are to believe that everything is going well in the area of apprenticeships. There is an absolute crisis in construction apprenticeships and we have not heard from the Minister about what emergency actions he is now taking to get more people into construction apprenticeships.

He did say that we could not afford the risk of people thinking that they would be worse off with an apprenticeship than going into other employment. It is not a risk. The situation now is that if you walk onto a building site and if do your safe pass course, you will be paid a much better rate as a non-skilled worker than if you are going into an apprenticeship to learn that skill. That is the current situation across building sites. If we are to value apprenticeships, and we all agree that we should, then people need to be paid a decent rate. The exemption on the minimum wage is a disgrace and it should be removed immediately.

There are other things that need to be done to boost the numbers. The Minister referenced how he wants to broaden and diversify the intake by increasing female participation in apprenticeships. While the actions here have meant that the number of women participating in apprenticeships have doubled over the last few years, that is working from a very low base. Look at what they did in the UK, when they, like us, were starting from a very low base. They managed to quadruple female participation from 2015 to 2020.

Compare us to some other countries, especially in the area of construction apprenticeships. In Denmark, 56% of those who are taking part in builder and painter courses in 2020 were women. The equivalent figure in Ireland is less than 5%. Some 25% of apprentices in carpenter and joiner courses in Denmark are women. I wonder if the Minister, Deputy Harris, or the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, know the corresponding figure for the number of women in Ireland for carpenter and joiners. It is 25% in Denmark, but it is less than 0.3% in Ireland.

A huge amount of work needs to be done to get us in line with good practice in other countries. In addition to implementing decent wages, while the grants and bursaries for female participation are welcome, they simply do not intervene far enough in this. There is a huge distance to go. Another thing we need to be doing, as has been done in other countries and is an absolute must, is putting quotas into our public contracts for construction to ensure that apprentices are hired as part of the workforce. This has been done successfully in Australia and Norway. When you think about it, the State is the largest buyer of construction contracts in this country for public infrastructure, housing etc. If the Government is serious about ensuring there are more apprentices and more people going to construction-related apprenticeships, why would it not put those into public procurement processes and into those contracts and insist that a percentage of the workforce hired for those are apprentices?

We need to pay apprentices a decent rate and make it attractive for them to go into apprenticeships. If we really value them, let us pay them well. We have a huge amount to do to increase female participation. Let us get real about this and put it into public contracts for all large construction contracts.

See this speech in context