Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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24. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on the uptake in the number of apprenticeships by females; if his Department has proposals to address the issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10117/17]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Has the Minister made any progress in making places available for girls and young women to do apprenticeships? I asked him about this last year but, on the ground, very little progress is being made. As international women's day approaches, has he revised his approach to this issue to enable many young women and girls to get an apprenticeship at the end of their secondary schooling so that they can get a good job? Has any headway been made?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Substantial progress is being made because we are now rolling out a whole range of new apprenticeships and we have an ambition to create 40 new apprenticeships in areas to which it will be much easier to attract women. Currently there is a tiny level of participation but 40% of the intake of the latest, the insurance practitioner apprenticeship, were female. We hope to introduce 13 new apprenticeships in the coming year and these will offer significant opportunities for women to get involved. They include areas such as accounting technician, international service specialist, international service associate and commis chef. They go right across a range of sectors, while the traditional craft apprenticeships have not attracted many women to participate.

As part of the expansion of the programme, SOLAS will introduce a new branding and marketing campaign and will focus on attracting women. There are already signs of success and there has been a dramatic turnaround in the example I gave. I share the Deputy's view on this.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Minister is saying the progress relates to last year and, while everything is being rolled out, nothing has actually been rolled out. Has the Minister had a chance to visit fifth year, sixth year or transition year groups in secondary schools around the country to ask the young women how many of them are interested in apprenticeships? In Austria and Germany it has been shown that, with buy-in from employers, it is quite possible to get women into craft areas traditionally dominated by men. In the previous Government I was involved in widening the range of apprenticeships available to women. At the end of an apprenticeship, someone has the possibility of not only getting a job but also of forming a small business. There is a lot of interest in apprenticeships in rural Ireland but the opportunities, for boys and girls, are extremely limited.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The positive news is that this year there has been an increase of 80% in the number of women in apprenticeships, albeit from a low base. Whenever I meet young women, in schools or elsewhere, I promote apprenticeship as a new stream. I set a realistic objective of 20% of young people being able to access apprenticeships or traineeships, so that we will have a strong and resilient alternative to going into higher education. It is important to win employers over to such a programme and we have a grant to support employers in the traditional trades who take on women. We will promote this grant as we rebrand apprenticeships. There is a growing demand in both traditional apprenticeships and new ones.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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We have a worrying dropout rate in colleges, particularly in certain courses in certain areas, where all qualifying applicants are being accepted. Many young people go to college, only to find out that it does not work out for them and that they would have been more successful in an apprenticeship. It sounds like it will take between five and seven years before the numbers increase in any dramatic way and before we begin to be like other countries. Next Wednesday we will celebrate international women's day and it is an enormous pity that this Government gives no priority to women and girls in the area of apprenticeships. We are not just talking about mañana, we are talking about years and years from now.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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That is nonsense. We are planning to increase apprenticeships by approximately 5,000 and the first one we have put in place has seen an increase in participation by women of 40%. We will make sure that women will get a fair crack of the whip and we will promote it. We will grant aid women in traditional apprenticeships and we will deliver improvement. The Deputy suggests that there will be no progress but we have committed to 40 new apprenticeships and 13 new traineeships by 2021, in new areas where women can participate outside the higher education institutions. It will be an alternative to those young people who drop out and are not suited to higher education in the first place. The apprenticeships will be across a range of qualifications and some will be as high as level 8. We are trying to make apprenticeship a much more broad-based offering. It is simply wrong to suggest the Government is ignoring this opportunity.