Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

It would be hard to say I am still not apprehensive about this. We will need some detail on how these postponements will happen. I agree with the Minister that pressure has to be put on in relation to the fact the apprenticeships must not be cancelled. We need to find the money and make sure everything is not held up. I agree with the work being done on the funding implications through to December. When does the Minister expect to have that? If we could at some point, if not today, get the overall figure and the breakdown for individual ETBs, that would be useful. Will this have an impact? The adult educators will be out here tomorrow and they are talking about tutors who have been told they have less work or will not have work across ten ETBs. We know the issues with LTIs so we are very worried across the further education piece. Clarity needs to be brought, alongside the money. We must find out how this happened and ensure it does not happen again.

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