Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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391. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures his Department is implementing to clear the backlog of apprentices awaiting completion of their training. [15186/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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In recent years, demand for craft apprenticeships has surged. Craft apprenticeship registrations increased by 34% over a five-year period, from 5,300 in 2019 to 7,100 in 2024. This increase, allied to physical closures of training venues as part of the pandemic response, led to a situation of insufficient capacity to meet growing demand.

In November 2023, the National Apprenticeship Office (NAO) established a priority response plan to address numbers of apprentices waiting six months or longer for Phase 2 off-the-job training, which was overseen by my department. There are a number of strands to this plan.

To increase apprenticeship delivery, significant resources have been invested, with funding of €67 million in Budget 2024, and €77 million in Budget 2025 - the largest investment in apprenticeship to date.

A targeted national recruitment campaign, launched in late 2023, resulted in sanctioning of 134 new instructor posts, all of which have now been filled. More than 80 instructors were also converted from fixed-term to permanent contracts, supporting retention of their expertise in the sector.

Consequently, the number of available craft training places has increased by 43% from 5,600 at the end of 2023 to over 8,000 in 2025.

There has been a decrease of 69% in the number of craft apprentices waiting over six months for their Phase 2 off-the-job training from 5,319 in October 2023 to 1,710 in April 2025.

The NAO will implement a robust methodology to monitor craft training capacity against forecasted demand, ensuring it meets future skills needs. My department will work closely with the NAO in this regard.