James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

In fairness, the Deputy was one of the first to raise this matter in the House a few weeks ago. He and Deputy Cullinane raised it in Topical Issues a couple of weeks back. As he is aware from that engagement, my Department and I were informed that, following engagements between SOLAS and ETBs on budgets, a funding pressure was identified for the 2025 apprenticeship budget. As I said a few questions back, that relates to allowances where apprentices are in the system longer than was anticipated because of backlogs that arose. They then became eligible for higher rates of payment which placed a strain on the funding of SOLAS and the ETBs. That is how it came about. SOLAS is the State agency tasked with the further education training sector and a key part of its remit is managing budgets and allocating funding to the ETBs to deliver those programmes.

Since the Deputy raised it last, I have engaged with SOLAS in person and in writing and I will meet its board this Thursday along with the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin. We are both going out to visit its board and will bring certain messages which I will not go into now but the Deputy can be sure this item will be on the agenda. I have written to the chair of the board, instructing him and SOLAS that no scheduled apprenticeship classes are to be cancelled. As we heard from Deputy O'Sullivan, it would be unacceptable for a backlog to be recreated. We need the apprenticeship system to work. We need employees to come through that training. A skilled labour force is essential.

SOLAS, with the full support of my officials, is working with the ETBs to identify solutions and that work is going well. We have identified moneys that can be allocated to that. I am engaging with the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation on additional supports. We will move might and main to make sure this gets through the system, the backlog is cleared and this does not go into another year. I do not think that would be acceptable to anybody.

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