John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The group identified five priority areas. Significant progress has been made and a lot more has to be done. I refer to the promotion of careers in the sector; an audit of hospitality-related courses and facilities in both higher education and further education and training sectors; the development of apprenticeship and traineeship programmes; the launch of a dedicated Skillnets programme for the hospitality industry, which we have done; and making employment connections.

The group published its first progress report update last year. This is available on the skillsireland.iewebsite. Work is currently under way on the second progress update. More than 6,000 students are enrolled annually on hospitality-related courses in further and higher education, of which just under 2,500 are on courses to train as chefs and cooks. We are committed to expanding the number of registrations on apprenticeship and traineeship programmes to 50,000 by 2020. To date, 11 new apprenticeship programmes have been developed, following the Apprenticeship Council's first call for proposals in 2015, including a new commis chef apprenticeship, led by the Irish Hotels Federation and the Restaurants Association of Ireland working with Kerry ETB. The programme commenced last year with an initial enrolment of 25. This year the enrolment has increased to 41. That is working reasonably successfully but there is a turnover on programmes as people come and go. It can be difficult. Work is at an advanced stage on the development of a chef de partieapprenticeship, led by the same organisation. A number of groups around the country are involved, for example, Crumlin College and colleges in Kerry, Cork, Galway and Cavan, among others. It is expected that approximately 48 apprentices will enrol on that course. Work is also under way to develop an apprenticeship for sous chefs which is intended to be rolled out in 2019.

There are difficulties attached to being a chef. I refer to working conditions and unsavoury hours and it can be very difficult to get people into the industry. That is the reason the consortium was put together. We want to see what we can do to deliver apprenticeships for commis chefs and in related areas.

There is interest in this area. For instance, we provided hospitality level 5 and level 6 courses last year and we had more than 100 trainees enrolled in the programmes, which was good. Would we have liked more? Yes, we would, but it is not the case that we had not put a call out for those programmes. A call out goes out every so often and we had 100 trainees. The generation of interest among secondary school students in careers in the sector is also very important. The NCCA recently published a draft new specification for junior certificate home economics with a strong emphasis on culinary skills. There is an effort in all areas of education to deal with the problem of chef recruitment. In terms of the delivery of the programme we have the involvement of Crumlin College in Dublin, Coláiste Íde College of Further Education in Finglas, Kerry ETB, Cork ETB and ETB centres in Galway, Roscommon, Cavan and Monaghan, and Limerick, among other areas. We are beginning to roll out the programme.

I would never be untruthful in what I say to the Senator. I accept that it is difficult to attract people into the industry. I hope the body that was set up will continue to report back and come up with innovative ideas that might make it easier for people to come into the industry. There is a definite increase in the take-up of positions as chefs in recent years.