Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to address the Seanad today, and also for her comments on this matter a number of months ago. They did have an impact and I acknowledge her leadership in recognising this untapped potential.There has been too much of the public sector talking the talk and expecting the private sector to walk the walk. We need to step up here. Apprenticeships are a hugely valuable route to both skills development and supporting economic recovery. There is much low-hanging fruit in our own country in this regard and there has been perhaps an elitist view on higher education for far too long. There is a great deal more we can do on apprenticeships. We have committed in the programme for Government to reach 10,000 newly registered apprentices each year by 2025. That is a massive increase which is up from approximately 6,000 apprentices a year at the moment. This will only happen if the private and public sector step up.

As of December 2020 there were 313 apprentices employed across 48 Departments, agencies and State bodies, 55 of whom were employed by local authorities in areas such as accounting technicians, plumbing, carpentry, cyber security and software development. While I thank each of those local authorities and Government Departments, the scale of that ambition is absolutely nowhere near adequate. Apprenticeships are employer-led offerings, are based on a contract of employment between the apprentice and the respective employer, and each local authority has its own human resources department which looks after local recruitment, supported by the Local Government Management Agency. As part of our consultation in developing our new action plan on apprentices, which I am due to bring the Cabinet next month, we have received much feedback from public sector organisations on what they believe will be required in order to be able to take on more apprentices. They have outlined things like relevant support and procedures that would need to be in place and the availability of mentor staff is also seen as critical particularly in the challenging Covid-19 environment.

When we publish our action plan on apprentices which is, as I say, due to go to Cabinet next month, the Senator can take it from me that there are going to be very clear commitments as to what every Government Department, State agency and local authority is required to do, to include what the baseline is for number of apprentices that each local authority and Government Department could take on and what extra packages of supports we need to put in place to make that happen. Without getting ahead of myself I can give the Senator an insight that this will be a core component, along with some of the gender equality issues on apprentices.

The Senator asked more broadly about apprenticeships. There are now 59 existing apprenticeship programmes ranging in duration from two years to four years. They range in qualifications from level 5 to level 10 and there are also a further 19 programmes being developed at the moment. Where there is an identified need for a new apprenticeship programme, it is then developed by an employer-led consortium of employers together with education and training providers under a structured framework.

The action plan for apprenticeships for the coming five-year period is under development. We have already seen some considerable success with the financial incentive for the first time ever now being offered to employers to take on an apprentice. In addition to the programme for Government commitment the role of the public sector in apprenticeship recruitment was raised by a number of stakeholders during our consultation process. The Senator can expect also to see formal commitments in this area in the Government’s new action plan.

I should mention that this following item ties together the gender equality issue, which is a big issue in apprentices, and the public sector issue in that I met Zoe Fitzgerald recently on Zoom. She is the 1,000th female apprentice registered in Ireland. We had 26 female apprentices in 2015, which is a shocking figure. We now have 1,000, which is still very low but is 1,000 up from 26 in 2015. The reason I mention that is that Zoe has taken up an apprenticeship in one of the local authorities in Cork. This is an example of how this State can do some real good here in policy development in giving young people a chance. We are very ambitious in this area and I am very eager to work with and benefit from Senator Keogan’s insight and to keep in touch with her on this matter.