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

The Minister's own Department and SOLAS recently produced the Report on the Analysis of Skills for Residential Construction & Retrofitting 2023-2030. That report estimated that we need to increase the size of the construction sector by 50,831 new entrants by the year 2030 if we are to meet our targets. What is interesting is that the report used 2019 as its base year. Between 2019 and 2022, however, the size of the construction workforce actually fell. If the craft apprenticeships were pumping out qualified tradespeople adequately and quickly, that might not be a cause for concern, but there is a huge cause for concern in the failure of craft apprenticeships and it relates to the wider failure around housing. If our craft apprenticeship system cannot produce the necessary workers, how will we build the homes we so desperately need? We know that so many craft apprentices are at a crisis point because it is taking so long for them to get qualified. It is taking them longer than the four years, which is absolutely outrageous. They are not able to get the money they deserve to get. They really are at a crisis point. I hope the Minister, now that he is in this Department, takes this and really pushes it forward.

See this speech in context