Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Harris, is doing a great deal of work on apprenticeships and dramatically increasing numbers, but the Deputy is right in that there are certain trades where the numbers are not increasing to the extent required. We need to examine how to achieve that. We believe there will be an extra 9,000 apprentices this year. That was the target for the end of 2025 but will probably be met this year. As such, there is an appetite. We need to change the approach to apprenticeships generally in the Irish economy and make them a feature across all sectors and trades as opposed to just construction or related industries.

This issue is feeding into our considerations in the short term as to what decision we will make around facilitating skills coming into Ireland through the work permit system. We live in a Single Market with 460 million people and there are many skills across that market. We need to ensure that we explore options within our own Union before we facilitate more skills coming from other parts of the world. This Government has shown itself to be open to bringing in skills from across the world. Ireland is one of the few countries that sees inward migration as a positive thing in terms of economic growth and development. We have the economic statistics to prove that is the right decision.

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