Written answers
Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Department of Education and Skills
Question Heading for question(s) 198
Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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198. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 581 of 7 February 2024, given that is has been three months, if he can please give an indication of when Solas will be in a position to provide a breakdown, by county, in tabular form, of the number of craft apprentices currently waiting for off the job training; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18369/24]
Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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SOLAS are now in a position to provide the information pertaining to craft apprentice waiting times which can be found in the attached document broken down by parent ETB.
A normal amount of time for an apprentice to wait for phase 2 off the job training is 3 to 6 months. Those waiting 6 months or longer are termed as part of a backlog waiting for training.
The rapid implementation of the response plan being implemented by the NAO means that the backlog has reduced from over 5,200 at the end of August 2023 to 3,460 at end-March 2024 – this is made up of phase 2 - 3,347, phase 4 - 95 and phase 6 - 18. this is the figure is also shown separately defined by registrations at parent ETBs in the attached document.
The total apprentice population has increased from over 17,500 in 2019 to 27,000 in 2023.
This Government is increasing the capacity of the apprenticeship system to meet the needs of NDP Delivery, Housing for All and the Climate Action Plan, at the same time as maintaining a sustained reduction in the apprenticeship backlog.
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