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

I apologise. For some reason I thought I had two minutes so I was in the middle of my contribution when I had to finish speaking.

Let us look at the local authorities as an example. At the moment, information on how many apprenticeships there are is not collected centrally. The reality is that in most of our cities, maintenance of our existing housing stock is a huge issue. I contacted all the local authorities - I had to write to them multiple times - and I learned that of the more than 31,000 employees in our local authorities, only 47 are identified as apprentices and Dublin City Council has 37 of those. Of 31 local authorities, 25 do not have a single craft apprentice. If we are serious about increasing the number of apprentices we are taking on board to be able to meet the targets the Government has set, the Government needs to look at local authorities bringing on apprentices, with a view to regional balance and so forth and in respect of what we need to get done in our local housing stock and meeting the targets we have set.

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