Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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369. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to outline the number of new operatives and new trades apprentices hired into each of the 31 local authorities for each year since 2016, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32586/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he or she is responsible.

My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole time equivalent basis. However, granular data, in terms of the specific role and function of each individual staff member is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. The relevant information would be available from individual local authorities.

I am aware that the local government sector participates in the employer-led national apprenticeship programme which falls under the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.