Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.”

I wish to share time with Senator Mark Wall.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.

Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, for his attendance. Right across the House, most of us accept there is a massive and urgent need to build homes. There are over 12,000 homeless women, men and children out there, with thousands more living from week to week and month to month, not knowing where they are going to live next. That puts pressure on us all to ensure that homes are built. Right across this Chamber, there is also a recognition of the enormous importance of apprenticeships within our education system as a pathway to decent, secure, skilled work; as a means for employers to ensure guaranteed flows of skills into their sector and, therefore, to secure the future of their businesses; and as a way to change career without having to face the cliff edge of no earnings at all during the duration of the training period. We have to ask ourselves, if apprenticeships are so important for the reasons I have set out, why is it not so important that they cannot be paid the minimum wage? Either we accept apprenticeships are a fantastic way to earn and learn, with all the doors they open, or we do not.

Yesterday, I was in the Google Building and we listened to two apprentices, Gavin and Paul, who talked about taking up apprenticeships after spending many years in other sectors. They were very lucky to get a tech apprenticeship that was both fully and decently paid, but that is far from the experience of many others.

In bringing forward this Bill to ensure that all apprentices are paid the minimum wage, we are doing it for two reasons. The first relates to the housing crisis, which I think we can all acknowledge we are in, and the serious need to confront the construction labour shortage that exists. Second, and more broadly, if we are serious about ensuring a decent flow of skills into a whole variety of sectors beyond construction, and if we are serious about apprenticeships being a quality educational experience and not just cheap labour, then serious changes need to be made to the consortia model as it was introduced in 2016.

Last December, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science said that 50,831 workers need to be recruited into the construction sector by 2030, which is an expansion in construction employment of one third. That is a huge expansion but it is only to keep pace with the Government's own targets of 33,000 houses per year and, of course, we know the real housing need far exceeds that. Craft and other trades make up almost 80% of this proposed expansion yet what we are seeing at the moment, or certainly what we saw last year, is that the number in apprenticeships is falling, not rising. Last year, craft apprenticeship registrations fell by 439. At the current pace of craft apprenticeships, we will be lucky to get to just over half of the construction recruitment if those numbers continue.

For us, hope is not a strategy. We need to address the problems with apprenticeship take-up and completion. We know from talking to contractors that there are real issues with apprenticeship recruitment and particularly completion beyond year one and year two of the apprenticeship. We know from talking to those in the Connect Trade Union that apprentices are saying that they cannot afford to stay and that they are being forced out of the crafts because of the pay set-up. I thank those in Connect for sharing with us their experiences and the experiences of their members as to what is happening with regard to the construction workforce at the moment.

While we have a sectoral employment order in construction and it is extremely welcome, the reality is that in year one apprentices are paid €7.16 an hour, and in year two that goes to €10.75. We know the national minimum wage is already way below any semblance of what we might call a living wage, so how do we expect apprentices to live on what are grossly low levels of pay? Unlike the misty-eyed impression of what apprenticeships used to be and the concept of the young fellow going into an apprenticeship after his junior certificate or just after the leaving certificate, the reality now is that many apprentices are coming into apprenticeships at a much older age. Many have cost-of-living issues, they have dependants and they simply cannot afford to live below the minimum wage when there are much easier jobs out there, and particularly when we are in such a tight labour market.

When we look at some of the research in Germany and Australia, both countries that have very strong apprenticeship systems, we see there is a very high correlation between poor apprenticeship completion rates and low rates of pay. In reading all of the research and hearing all of the talk about apprenticeships in Ireland over the last two years, and in acknowledging there has been significant progress on apprenticeships, there has been very little or no emphasis on completion rates. That is something we need to really focus on if we are to try to ensure that we have the construction workers that we need. There are a number of parts to this Bill. First, employers need to reflect on the cost to them of constant labour shortages as a result of not training enough apprentices, plus the wasted costs when apprentices abandon after year one and year two. Second, we need to look at the structures for the delivery of training, and the decline in direct employment. There has been a massive drop in the number of employers taking on apprentices. There is a very fundamental and serious issue with regard to why we are not seeing the flow of apprentices through construction. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, we had around 400 to 500 employers taking on apprentices. That number has dwindled to 40 or 50 major construction employers in this country. It is fantastic that the major construction employers have very comprehensive apprenticeship programmes but if we are serious about increasing the overall number of apprentices, we need to look to the smaller employers too.

In terms of Government, we know the National Training Fund, which funds the off-the-job training or the educational part of the apprenticeship, is in surplus to the tune of around €1.5 billion. We need to think very seriously about why, in the midst of a skills shortage, the National Training Fund has such a massive surplus.

That brings me to the second reason we brought this Bill forward. As I said, there has been a major expansion in the number of apprenticeships since 2016, and that is very welcome. However, we have concerns about conditions of pay and about the use of apprenticeships as a source of cheap labour in certain sectors. In contrast to the crafts, as we all know, there is not mandatory pay for off-the-job training, and there is not a sectoral rate. I referred to two men earlier. If we are to make apprenticeships more attractive and ensure high rates of completion, we need to look at those conditions. We need to have a single framework for all apprenticeships, and we need to see pay determined at sectoral levels in conjunction with employers and workers' representatives, as opposed to being left to the whim of individual employers.

There have been proposals in recent months with regard to the need for construction labour to be imported from abroad, and for construction to be put on the critical skills migrant employment permit list. The Labour Party supports that but let me be clear about it. That needs to complement apprenticeships and a system of ensuring a steady and sustained flow of construction skills in this country, and not a be substitute.

The second key point is that we cannot fall into the trap of believing that importing skills from abroad is, in some way, a silver bullet. We know that apprenticeships in some other countries do not match the level we have here. Craft apprenticeships here tend to be Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, level 6 while in other countries, they can be level 5. It depends on the country. Second, we do not have a fast-track system for recognising those skills and crafts from abroad, and ensuring, in a very short period of time, that those workers can undertake an examination, and be brought up to speed. That is not only relevant to those coming from abroad, but it is particularly so for those who moved abroad from Ireland during the last recession and who went to Australia and other countries and may now wish to return. They too may have a difficulty, particularly if they did not complete their apprenticeships.

This is a very simple Bill, but we believe it is critically important that in addressing the labour shortage in construction, pay is one of a number of factors. We want to address that issue in our Bill and we very much hope the Government will support this. We all realise there is a crisis in construction labour, and we have to seriously confront how we go about fixing it.

Mark Wall (Labour)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the House, and I look forward to his response to this very important Bill. I put on record the Labour Party's thanks to Senator Sherlock for her considerable work on preparing and bringing forward this Bill.

As has been said, there has been a drop of more than 300 apprenticeship registrations, down from 8,607 in 2021 to 8,286 in 2022. To put it simply, the Government must do better. It is time those considering starting their working lives as apprentices receive fair pay. It is time apprentices receive the minimum wage. I thank the Connect trade union for its work in bringing forward such a proposal and for all the work it does with apprentices. Connect estimates that around 8,000 apprentices earn as little as €6.84 an hour. That is the bottom line regarding where apprentices are in this State at the moment.

The fall in the number of people registering for craft trades in particular is, in my opinion and that of so many others, feeding into the housing crisis. The preliminary census figures tell us that we have 166,000 vacant, derelict and unoccupied homes in this State, which is nothing short of disgraceful in a housing crisis. Every effort must be made to encourage more people to take up apprenticeships, and in particular the craft ones, to assist in reducing this number and making those 166,000 vacant homes into family homes in the quickest possible time.

Since I started talking about the fall-off in the numbers of apprenticeships, I have been contacted by a large number of people who have informed me that they considered taking up an apprenticeship role and wanted to be the next electrician, blocklayer or plumber or the next person in a craft trade. However, when they learned what the first- and second-year rates of pay were, it simply was not an option for them. Many of those young people who I spoke to had gone to college but college was not for them. They looked at trades and at where they would go for employment. However, when they started to look at trades and what the first- and second-year rates of pay were, it simply was not an option because many of them had families and mortgages, and they could not afford to stay in the trade. Unfortunately, that is replicated throughout the country.

Last week, Government launched another €1 billion housing plan. There was little or no mention in the housing plan of the labour and where we were going to get the labour to build those essential homes. Government should be looking at offering a minimum wage to those people who have contacted me and, I am sure, other colleagues in the House to encourage them into these much-needed trades. It takes a number of years to train up, but those initial years are still so important to many contractors in order to get work completed. The contractors I have spoken to say that without those apprentices and assistants, they simply will not get through the level of work they need to do.

I have received a number of comments from people since I started talking about this earlier in the year, and since Senator Sherlock brought it up. I wanted to put on record two of those comments. The first one reads:

Thank you for raising this issue. I could not believe when I opened my wage pack. I rang the owner of the business. I was informed that I was on an apprenticeship rate, and that I was getting something similar for the next three years. I have a child in school. I simply cannot afford to continue in this trade. [They named the trade, which I will not do] I have to give up the job that I was really enjoying.

The second comment tells of a similar experience. It reads:

My experience to date is that I wanted to try a trade, but given the initial wage, I had to reconsider my position. There is no way I could pay my rent and live. I also had to travel to Dublin for training. I know others who have the same experience. Thanks for raising this issue.

I could give the Minister of State more examples, and I am sure other colleagues could do so.

No working person should be paid less than the minimum wage, yet our apprentices, those learning these vital crafts and trades, which help build homes and keep the roofs over our heads, are paid less than the minimum wage. It is no wonder we are in the housing crisis we are in. Our young people are fleeing from apprenticeships, opting to enter proper, paid employment. I look forward to Government's response tonight. This is something that has to change.

Ollie Crowe (Fianna Fail)
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I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:

- "the Bill be read a second time this day twelve months, to allow for further consideration of the Bill."

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, to the House. As Members will be aware, there are existing industrial relations structures for the negotiation of apprenticeship rates. When the national minimum wage was introduced in 2000, it was determined that the apprentices should be excluded from the Act in recognition of the unique rates of such apprenticeships, and the fact that a long-established practice for determining rates, which adequately protected apprentices, already existed. It was recognised that the apprenticeships offered a unique combination of education and work experience, and that exempting apprentices from the national minimum wage would promote and encourage employers to focus on training apprenticeships, while at the same time recognising the cost to employers in terms of time, investment and productivity forgone.For the majority of apprenticeships the rate of pay is agreed between the apprentice and the employer, with the employer paying the apprentice rate during the on-the-job and off-the-job training elements of the apprenticeship.

For the 25 craft apprenticeship programmes the minimum rates of pay applying under the employment contracts are either agreed in the relevant sector or set out in legally-binding sectoral employment orders recommended by the Labour Court. These minimum rates vary between occupations and sectors but in all cases craft apprenticeships rates are exposed as a proportion of the qualified rate, increasing yearly from 33% of the qualified rate in year one to 90% in year four.

We must acknowledge that to ensure the apprenticeship system continues to deliver for learners and employers the Government has created an apprenticeship action plan. This initiative will ensure we have a modern apprenticeship system reflective of Irish society and supports learners and employers along the way. The new apprenticeship base has grown strongly over the past three years, with 35 apprenticeship types launched during that time. It provides a solid foundation for increased awareness and recruitment in the coming years. A review of all of the craft apprenticeships has been delivered and they have been revised and modernised. An updated framework for quality assurance has been developed. At present there are more than 60 programmes that lead to valuable qualifications in areas such as finance, accountancy, laboratory technician, engineering, heavy vehicle mechanic and healthcare. The action plan aims to expand the types of programmes available and increase the number of apprenticeships to 10,000 per year by 2025. The budget for 2023 contained a cost-of-living package for students and investment in third level education, including a one-off reduction of 33% in fees paid by apprentices and additional funding for social inclusion measures in apprenticeships.

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I second the Government amendment.

I thank the Labour Party for tabling the Private Members' Bill. In particular I acknowledge the work done by Senator Sherlock in this area. I know from being on the committee with her that she has a real passion for this issue and has put an awful lot of work into it. She spoke about it yesterday at the committee. It is important to discuss fair pay for apprentices and the role they play. I see it in Clonmel and the number of apprentices that come through Tipperary Education and Training Board is significant. It is very important in an area where construction is significant. We need to have a serious discussion about it.

When we discuss this it is important that we are honest about what has happened in recent years in terms of the work done by the Government to promote apprenticeships. We have a plan in place to have 10,000 apprenticeships by 2025. I read Senator Wall's piece in a newspaper today. I do not doubt that he was being genuine in what he wrote but when we speak about figures we have to give a full account of all of them. It is true that apprenticeships have reduced by 300 this year to 8,200. It probably would have been helpful if Senator Wall had included the figures previous to this, where the figure increased from 5,300 to 8,200. Even in 2019, the figure was just over 6,000. There has been a vast increase in the number of apprentices coming through every year, albeit there has been a drop of 300. I cannot remember what the Senator said a few minutes ago but he essentially described this as shocking. It must be amazing then that we had an increase of almost 3,000 in the space of three years. We need to get to 10,000 by 2025.

We speak about construction as an area where apprenticeships are needed drastically and that is the case. Again, when we speak about figures we need to be factual. The figure of 166,000 vacant houses was quoted as supposedly outrageous. We need to give a full clear account of what the CSO figures state. Of the 166,000 houses that are vacant, 35,000 are vacant because they are up for rent, 27,000 are vacant because the owner has died and 23,000 are vacant because they are being refurbished. I agree that we should speak about this issue and it is very important to focus on it.

One of the challenges we have had over the past ten years, certainly in terms of construction, is that there were no apprenticeships in the sector between 2010 and 2012. We are where we are now because of this. We need to make sure we increase the numbers. If we are going to talk about what the Government has or has not done, we need to give the full picture. When we speak about it this needs to be outlined. I thank the Labour Party for tabling this important Private Members' Bill for discussion.

Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister of State. I commend my colleagues from the Labour Party for tabling the Private Members' Bill. It is a worthy Bill and gives us an opportunity to debate something that we all know is an issue in Ireland today, namely, low pay. Low pay is a real problem in our country. We know this. We know the statistics show that we have one of the largest proportions of workers on low pay among the EU 27.

I will cut to the chase. The Minister of State could have adopted a different attitude this evening. The idea of postponing the Bill for 12 months, which effectively kills it and, let us be frank, is not good enough. As everyone has acknowledged, the craft rate for year one of a craft trade apprenticeship is €7.03. How can we be happy with this? Is it not something we need to tackle? We heard recently from the Minister Deputy O'Brien that one of the constraints, according to him, that helps explain the constant failure of the Government's housing policy is supply of staff. Here is a mad idea. Perhaps if we paid those apprentices a little better, we might have more people joining and tackling the issue.

Apparently the solution of the Minister of State is to postpone the reading of the Bill for 12 months. In the middle of a housing crisis and staffing crisis, when presented with a simple Bill to increase the rates of pay at the very bottom for these workers to help attract young people to these crucial apprenticeships, the answer of the Minister of State is not to do so but to postpone the Bill for 12 months while the Government thinks about it. Seriously, how on earth is this a credible response to a very modest and sensible Bill, particularly when I know that last March the Irish Congress of Trade Unions wrote to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to state the trade union movement believes the minimum wage exemption for apprenticeships, including craft apprenticeships, is no longer sustainable or fair, is counter-productive and should be abolished? Connect Trade Union has pointed out that, contrary to when the clause excluding its application to apprentices was included in the National Minimum Wage Act, many of those now undertaking apprenticeship have previously gone to college or undertaken other work and, as a result, are often older than the apprentices we saw previously.

The Government has had very good communication from ICTU and Connect Trade Union in particular to state there is a problem. Does anyone here think that €7.03 is okay as a first year rate of pay? Does the Minister of State think it is okay? A simple "Yes" or "No" in his response to the debate would be great. If he does not think it is okay, why on earth does he not do something constructive with the Bill and let it move on to Committee Stage? Let us continue the discussion. If the Minister of State has concerns about the Bill, we can tease them out on Committee Stage. That is what it is for. We can do pre-legislative scrutiny. The idea that the response from a Fianna Fáil Minister of State to an issue of shocking low levels of pay for apprentices is to postpone the Bill for 12 months and come back and talk about it next year, when we will probably be within six months of an election, is an abdication of duty. I cannot understand it. ICTU believes paying apprentices below the national minimum wage is a significant continuing factor to the low commencement rate for craft apprenticeships, especially in a tight labour market. It has to be. One can get paid €13 per hour right now in some of the better supermarkets. That is almost twice the first year rate of pay for making sandwiches. Yet the Minister of State will say this seems like a good discussion and we will pause it for 12 months. How many young people will leave the State in the next 12 months because of the rotten low rate of starting pay for apprenticeships? Does that matter to the Minister of State? If it does matter, I say respectfully to him that he is free to adopt a more progressive attitude on this matter this evening. He has the power. Why not accept the Bill, let it pass Second Stage and let our colleagues in the Labour Party bring it through to Committee Stage, which will not be for weeks? We only get one Private Members' business per term here, typically, as we do not have much representation. In that time, work through the Bill and try to make a difference for our young workers. Imagine the message the Minister of State is sending to young people this evening: “Yes, you are on €7 an hour. Sure we'll have a look at that again next year.” Really?

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I am passionate about apprenticeships, particularly for those between the ages of 16 and 18 years. During Covid, I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, to Senator Doherty, when she was Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, and to the Minister, Deputy Harris, about the issue relating to 16- to 18-year-olds on apprenticeships. They could not get a single penny from the State. If they were doing five hours per week at the local deli or pub, they got €350 per week. If they were doing an apprenticeship, they got nothing. There is a huge difference between €7.03 per week for a 16- or 17-year-old and for somebody with more needs who is between the ages of 19 and 22. There is a scale that can be made. I ask the Minister of State to look at that. Those aged 16 to 18 have totally different needs from the older cohort. If ever a pandemic or anything like that happens again, do not leave out the young teenagers in that cohort. They got nothing from this State, and that was wrong.

Annie Hoey (Labour)
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I echo Senator Wall's comments thanking our colleague, Senator Sherlock, for the work she has done on this legislation and overall for apprentices and workers. It is an indictment of how we treat apprentices that they are not included in minimum wage legislation. For the first couple of years of some apprenticeships, the pay can be as low as €6.84 or €8.45, which is far off the minimum wage. We are here today because we want that changed. We need to encourage young people into apprenticeships in areas like construction in order to address labour shortages holding back the building and retrofitting of homes. We know contractors are finding it difficult to find and retain apprentices, particularly in year one and two of apprenticeships. Connect Trade Union has said excluding apprentices from being paid the minimum wage is forcing young workers out of the craft sector.

I met people from the Welsh Senedd last week. They spoke of how Ireland has a global image of craft and culture. When we see the decline in the number of people engaging in those sectors, it is very disappointing.

This Bill will stop discouragement and remove the barriers to people taking up apprenticeships. There are other barriers beyond pay, but in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, money talks. The Bill is about ensuring that all apprentices across the 66 apprenticeships will be paid fairly and not used as cheap labour in certain sectors, that there will be a steady and sustained flow of skilled labour into the sectors and that no working person will be paid less than minimum wage.

Much of our focus is on the construction sector, both for new builds and retrofitting, to tackle the housing crisis - and a crisis it is unfortunately. Earlier today, however, the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media, of which I am a member, ended up having a conversation about apprentices, even though that was not what it was supposed to be doing. It was supposed to be discussing rural tourism. We somehow found ourselves – perhaps strategically on my part – discussing apprenticeships. We want booming and thriving tourism, hospitality and retail sectors, but I was struck by the imbalance in where some of the apprentices are. We spoke about cheffing and who has access to apprenticeships in this regard. The majority of them are in Munster, which puts Dublin and the west at a huge disadvantage because people who want to go further in their apprenticeship training find in their fourth and fifth years that the have to train in Munster. They are obliged to travel to and from Munster or to get accommodation there. That is having a knock-on impact. I will circle back to what we were originally talking about, namely, accommodation. They are not able to get accommodation, travel up and down or take the time to move down there. It is a bigger problem than just in relation to the construction sector.

I do not doubt the Government commitment to apprenticeships, whether from the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science or otherwise. We want to see managed, joined-up thinking on this. It does not just fall under one Department. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications has set up the heat and built environment task force. That task force will have to look at how apprentices and apprenticeships will contribute to dealing with that issue. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science wants to get 50,000 new apprenticeships into the system. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage will have a role to play. Not only do we want to see our apprentices paid the minimum wage, we want to see a strategic, managed, cross-departmental approach to utilising learning opportunities, not only for the sake of such opportunities – which are important – but also to drill down into the nitty-gritty of some of the areas in which we will need apprentices in the future. Many of us have spoken about housing in this regard in the context of both retrofitting and new builds.

We all have stories about apprentices. My colleague, Senator Wall, spoke of someone who got their first pay packet and realised they would not be able to continue with it. Perhaps they were not made aware of it beforehand but it is a reality for people that they cannot afford to do apprenticeships. In this cost-of-living crisis when we desperately need to get people into the sector, I do not think we can afford to not pay apprentices the minimum wage. We are not looking for highfalutin stuff but for a minimum wage for apprentices because we need them to contribute to housing construction and retrofitting and across sectors. I mentioned tourism and hospitality but there is a plethora of sectors in which we need apprentices. The Government’s plan and targets for number of apprentices will not be met if we cannot get to the baseline of a minimum wage for them. I join others in being concerned about kicking this down the road for 12 months. That is not sending a good signal to those looking to diversify their education and contribute to the much-needed apprenticeship sector

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim buíochas le Páirtí an Lucht Oibre agus leis an Seanadóir Sherlock as ucht an Bhille seo. Gabhaim buíochas freisin leis na Seanadóirí uilig as ucht a gcuid ráiteas úsáideacha inniu. The Bill, as introduced by Senator Sherlock, whose work on this issue I acknowledge, seeks to ensure that apprentices are included within the application of the national minimum wage Acts and that the entitlement of remuneration of the National Minimum Wage Act extends to apprentices. This Government, above all previous Governments, recognises the vital importance of apprenticeships to the economy and employers, and especially to those who avail of this career track. We have set very ambitious targets for the recruitment of apprentices. We have placed the responsibility for apprenticeships within a new stand-alone Department. There are currently 66 national apprenticeship programmes available with up to ten more coming on stream later this year. Senator Sherlock and the Acting Chair referred to the drop in the 2022 figures but, as Senator Ahearn said, this should be looked at in the much broader context of the figures and our commitment, through working with a fantastic range of ETBs throughout the country, to expand the range and accessibility of those apprenticeships. I will definitely follow up on the issue raised by Senator Hoey regarding chef apprenticeships.

It is important to set out the context and reasons apprentices are currently exempted from the right to receive the national minimum wage. When the national minimum wage was introduced in 2000, it was determined that apprentices would be excluded from the Act in recognition of the unique nature of such apprenticeships and the fact that a long-established practice for determining rates, which adequately protected apprentices, already existed. It was recognised that apprenticeships offered a unique combination of education and work experience, and that exempting apprentices from the national minimum wage would promote and encourage employers to focus on training apprentices, and offering opportunities to them, while at the same time recognising the cost to employers in terms of time invested and productivity forgone.

Apprentices are employees and all of the 66 apprenticeship programmes are undertaken under a contract of employment. For the majority of apprenticeships, the rate of pay is agreed between the apprentice and the employer, with the employer paying the apprentice during both on-the-job and off-the-job training elements of the apprenticeship. For the 25 craft apprenticeship programmes that Senator Sherlock referred to, the minimum rates of pay applying under the employment contract are either agreed within the relevant sector, or are set out in the legally binding sectoral employment orders recommended by the Labour Court. A sectoral employment order is a statutory minimum wage-setting mechanism in a given economic sector. An amended sectoral employment order was very recently signed for the construction sector that will come into effect on 18 September this year. It applies to craftspeople, construction operatives and apprentices. The order will provide for increased rates of hourly pay for workers in the construction sector.

The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has responsibility for apprenticeship policy as it relates to education and training. The relevant policy framework is the Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025, referred to by Senators Crowe and Ahearn, which sets out actions to deliver a single unified apprenticeship system that is seen as a valued option by potential apprentices and employers. While any review of apprentice rates is a matter for the appropriate industrial relations structures, as I mentioned, we all recognise, this Government very especially, the increasing pressure on workers, including apprentices, as a result of inflation and other cost-of-living factors. Therefore, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science is engaging with partners to assess how these structures could be best informed of those considerations, as discussed this evening. This is an ongoing process and the Department is committed to concluding the process as soon as possible. I will ensure that the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, and the Minister of State at that Department, Deputy Niall Collins, receive the transcripts of this debate to encourage them to bring it to a very speedy conclusion.

Work is also ongoing on the issue of sub-minimum, or youth, rates of the national minimum wage. Some of the points raised by Senator Keogan will be covered by that. Currently, the minimum wage for those aged under 20 is less than the minimum wage for those aged 20 and over. The Low Pay Commission has been asked to make recommendations on these youth rates and that report is expected later this year. Given the age profile of Irish apprentices, the Low Pay Commission’s findings and recommendations will be of relevance to any considerations on the remuneration of apprentices.

We currently have 66 different apprenticeship programmes across several different crafts, trades and sectors and, as I said, that is expanding. In that context, I do not think it is advisable to make such a significant change to all apprenticeship programmes without further consideration. There are existing industrial relations structures for the negotiation of apprenticeship rates that work with the co-operation of bodies such as ICTU that have been referred to during this debate. The Government has ongoing engagement with all stakeholders, including the unions referred to, on this issue. As I said, we are waiting for the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation on youth rates of the national minimum wage. Given the current structures that are in place, the ongoing engagement, the work that the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has under way - as I said, I will add this debate to it - and the fact that we are waiting for the Low Pay Commission's recommendation, we are seeking a timed amendment to the Second Reading of this Bill. I assure Senator Gavan that we are not binning the Bill. Considerable and urgent work is under way on addressing these issues, to reference Senator Hoey, in a way that is a strategically managed, cross-departmental method. I assure Senators that the urgency of this debate will be reflected in my report to colleagues on it.

Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit. I thank all the Senators for contributing. The reason we brought the Bill forward now is there is an urgent situation with regard to construction labour, in addition to a cost-of-living crisis, which the Minister of State acknowledged. While there was defensiveness on the Government side with regard to figures last year and the year before, there has been very little engagement, to be frank, from that side of the House on why we have seen a decline in apprentices and why we hear from contractors that they have difficulty in recruiting and retaining apprentices.

I hear what the Minister of State has to say about conversations going on with stakeholders, but there is an urgency here. We do not have the luxury of waiting around years and years for houses to be built. We are all only too aware, in the areas we live in, of the homelessness issue, which is there for us all to see. I say to Senator Ahearn, the cost of living tripled in 2022 so there is an issue regarding the attractiveness of going into an apprenticeship relative to many other sectors. Senator Gavan talked about people being paid €13 or €14 an hour to make sandwiches, while someone who wants to train as an electrician has to endure pay rates of €7.16 an hour in the first year of his or her apprenticeship. The key thing is whether we can align our apprenticeship system with the reality of where we are in 2023, when apprentices and contractors are saying to us that people cannot afford to stay in apprenticeships.

I hear what the Minister of State has to say regarding having to have engagement with stakeholders and what he said about the Low Pay Commission. However, do we really need to wait for the Low Pay Commission to tell us we need to treat adults like adults and not like children? I hear what Senator Keogan has to say with regard to those who are aged 16 and 17 and the fact that we are treating 18- and 19-year-olds like children, not adults. That is simply unacceptable.

It is very much to be regretted that there is a lack of urgency - that is the message going out from this Chamber today - in fixing the problem with apprenticeships in this country as regards construction.

Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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The key point is the Government does not have the figures for this year, there was a dramatic drop last year, and it has not provided any evidence-----

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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But you do not know-----

Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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-----as to what happened last year.

Mark Wall (Labour)
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The Minister of State, without interruption.

Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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The key point is that a modest request is on the table, which is that we ensure every worker in this country is paid the minimum wage and that if somebody is doing an apprenticeship that involves work and education, he or she will be paid the minimum wage.To go back to what I said at the start of the debate, it is to get away from that misty-eyed notion that it is young lads of 16 and 17 doing apprenticeships. People go into apprenticeships when they are much older. People want to make career changes. We are not facilitating them in doing so by having those pay rates, particularly in years one and two.

We look forward to hearing the outcome of the discussions. We would like to hear a timeline as to when the Minister of State hopes to be back to us with the outcome. I have seen in this Chamber before votes being put off for 12 months. In my naivety in my early years here, I thought something would happen. Now there is probably a little bit of the cynic in me saying we will be having this debate in 12 months' time and we will be still looking at sub-minimum wage rates with regards to apprenticeships. All the while, we have a Government that is failing to meet its social housing targets amid a massive housing need across the country. I ask the Minister of State to take on board all the contributions that have been made. There is an urgency about this issue and we want to hear that same sense of urgency from the Minister of State. We did not hear that in his contribution. Unfortunately, we will have to call a vote because this is an important issue for us. There are apprentices and contractors tuning into this debate who want to know that the Government is taking the issue seriously.