Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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907.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of apprentice plasters, bricklayers and plumbers recorded within the State in the years of 2023 and to date in 2024, in tabular form. [25096/24]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The below tables set out the requested information for each of the relevant apprenticeship programmes - Brick & Stonelaying, Plastering and Plumbing - for 2023 and up to the end of May 2024.

Table 1 deals with registration, i.e. persons who have signed up for the programme in the given year, and population, i.e. persons in the process of completing the programme.

Table 2 sets out the number of persons who have completed all seven stages of the particular programme and who have all practical and academic work validated. This process can take up to 3 months after phase 7 has been completed.

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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908.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will consider expediting a review of the SOLAS statutory apprenticeship which requires that certain apprenticeships applicants must pass the Ishihara colour vision test without the use of corrective lenses, particularly considering the most recent technological advances that have been made in such lenses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25139/24]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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SOLAS regularly review the requirements for existing apprenticeship programmes through the Programme Advisory Board (PAB), and the matter of colour vision testing is kept under review as part of the PAB process.

To that end, SOLAS sought out specialist organisations to carry out a review of the requirement for the use of Ishihara Colour Vision test for various apprenticeship programmes, benchmarking the requirement for colour vision testing against other EU countries and organisations.

In March 2024, Interactions Research were procured to carry out this review and provided a preliminary report for June 2024. SOLAS is reviewing this report and in the process of reverting to the provider with a number of queries for clarification and expansion, and details of the report will be available following this process.