Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question and kind words. Planning for current and future public and private sector workforce and skills needs and ensuring an appropriate pipeline of suitable qualified graduates is a particular priority of mine. I say public and private because we need to meet the needs of the economy and to continue to work closely with businesses on upskilling and reskilling their workforce and around providing them with the graduates they need. We also need to ensure we are providing enough graduates to meet the needs of our public services. This is something the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy Higgins, often raises in making sure we have enough people to work in the disability sector, including speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists. I look at the full spectrum of the needs of our country, both societally and economically.

In terms of our economy, in June 2022 I announced the creation of over 1,000 permanent places across a range of key skills areas, including: an extra 235 places in ICT; an extra 138 places in architecture and construction; an extra 112 places in engineering; and an extra 27 places in the environment. For the first time, since last September students are able to enter new tertiary programmes outside the CAO system. I believe in this; we were losing people who could be good and passionate in a certain area because they were not good at rote learning in school. You can do your degree, regardless of what you get in the leaving certificate, by being assessed in a different way for your suitability to enter, once you meet some minimum requirements. You start your programme in further education and students then progress seamlessly into a guaranteed place to complete that fully accredited degree in higher education. I am pleased to inform the House that I will be announcing a range of new tertiary programmes for September 2024 in the coming months, including new tertiary degrees in ICT, engineering and science.

Springboard+ and the human capital initiative are also ensuring this country's competence in technical areas remains at a high level. Human capital initiative pillar 2 provides additional places in identified key areas of enterprise skills needs, including science, engineering, ICT and professional construction qualifications. Through the budget, I am investing significantly in our apprenticeship system. Apprenticeships have a crucial role to play in meeting Ireland's skills needs and they significantly contribute to meeting the Government's commitments on Housing for All and our climate action plan. Building on the measures taken in previous budgets, an extra €67 million in investment in our apprenticeship system will grow the number of places from 13,000 in 2022 to over 16,000 this year.

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