Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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1440. To ask the Minister for Health if his Department and public bodies and agencies that operate under his remit run apprenticeship programmes or are directly engaged in the training of apprentices; if so, the number of apprentices involved; the specialities in which they are being trained; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19586/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025, the Government has set an overall target of 10,000 new apprenticeship registrations per annum by 2025.

An inter-departmental Working Group has been established by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to develop a Public Service Apprenticeship Recruitment Plan. This will set out ways to advance a commitment to have 750 annual public service-wide apprentice registrations by 2025.  The Department of Health is represented on this group.

As part of this work, over 100 civil and public service organisations have recently been surveyed for their views on apprenticeship and their skills needs. Following on from this, the Public Service Apprenticeship Recruitment Plan is currently under development, in partnership with a comprehensive range of civil and public service stakeholders, including this department. It is anticipated to be finalised before September 2022.

From a health perspective, there has already been keen interest expressed in developing an apprenticeship for Healthcare Assistants. My officials are liaising with relevant counterparts in the HSE, in collaboration with DFHERIS, with this concept in mind for further exploration for development, along with several other apprenticeship projects under consideration.