Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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54. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the urgent action that can be taken to entice young people to go into trades through apprenticeships (details supplied) given the deficit that exists; if placements will be made closer to home; and if additional night classes will be introduced locally to facilitate young people who are working. [27258/24]

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I ask that urgent action be taken to ensure young people go into trades through apprenticeships given the deficit that exists. Will college placements be made available in a timely fashion and closer to home? Will additional night classes be introduced locally to facilitate young people who wish to go into the trades? There is an urgent need for blocklayers, plasterers, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, commercial and construction drivers, people with culinary skills for hotels, etc.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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The number of apprentices in Ireland has grown significantly, from 17,800 in 2019 to over 27,000 today. However, our priority, consistent with the Deputy's question, is to make apprenticeships attractive for even more young people, given our skills and workforce needs under priority Government strategies.

The Department's Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025 aims to promote apprenticeship as a route to valuable qualifications and high-quality jobs and careers. The National Apprenticeship Office is continuing to work with the Institute of Irish Guidance Counsellors to promote and increase awareness of apprenticeship in schools and with parents. World Skills Ireland, sponsored by the Department, is promoting skills-based careers and apprenticeship to over 30,000 second-level students from across the country.

The National Apprenticeship Office's, Facts, Faces, Futures, campaign highlighted the skills, talent and contributions made by female apprentices across Ireland. The Department developed and launched the careers in construction action plan in August 2023, including the Building Heroes peer-to-peer social media campaign to change perceptions of careers in construction, and a documentary of a day in the life of construction apprentices will be distributed to second-level schools across the country.

Apprenticeship scheduling is carried out on a national basis by co-ordinating providers and all efforts are made to schedule apprentices to their nearest available training location. If this is not possible, they will be called to the next nearest available location.

Apprentices are in full-time employment. Employers commit to release the apprentice for off-the-job training either on block or day release. As such, no evening provision is catered for in those circumstances.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Problems exist with the college placements. For example, one young fellow from Glenflesk has to wait approximately 18 months for a college placement. He and others are finding this disheartening, resulting in some of them giving up on their course, moving jobs and even emigrating. Can something be done to speed up this waiting time, especially in view of the fact that the country is crying out for tradespeople?

When apprentices get a college placement, they find they have to travel mid-term to places such as Waterford or Limerick where there is no accommodation available. Can the Minister of State ensure that night courses be put in place for some of these people to make sure they do not have to travel these awful distances and stay in the trades in which they began their apprenticeship? Otherwise, they will leave the country. This is posing a serious difficulty. Many apprentices are not finishing their apprenticeship. Instead of taking four years, some courses are taking six years or more for complete. This is not good enough.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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There is nothing wrong with Waterford.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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As I said in earlier exchanges with other Deputies, the Department is aware of the challenges and backlogs. We have put significant resources into dealing with the backlog, which is falling significantly. We will continue to work on that.

I appreciate the Deputy's point regarding apprentices having to travel distances to training centres. We are working on this issue too and allocating significant resources to developing more training centres and hiring more instructors and tutors.

The Deputy asked about night classes. Apprenticeship programmes require the apprentice to be in full-time employment with the sponsoring company. In order for the company to be registered as an approved employer, it undertakes a commitment to release the apprentice for his or her off-the-job training, which is held either in an education and training board or a technological university as a day-time programme. Owing to the structure of the programme and the agreement of the employer to release the apprentice to attend training, there is no evening provision available for any of the off-the-job phases at present.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I asked that question because I thought evening provision could help. It is a fact that these young fellas are giving up. I have even had employers on to me asking what is wrong and why college placements cannot be hurried on because this is delaying their apprenticeship and making their course way longer. Employers need apprentices. This fella in Glenflesk was told a month ago he will be waiting 18 months. That is not good enough. We will lose these young people who we need. We cannot afford to see them emigrating to other countries where they may get their apprenticeship and become qualified much easier. I ask the Minister of State to ensure this does not continue and the problem is sorted out.

We appreciate the fact that more young people are going for the trades because we certainly need them. Many of the fellas we have are getting old and worn out. Many of them are still working at 70 years of age and no longer able for it. I ask the Minister of State to hurry on and deal with this problem

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy's suggestion has merit and we will highlight it in the Department. As I said, the Deputy should bear in mind we have increased the capacity of the State to deliver off-the-job training. That came at a cost and there are challenges in relation to that in terms of recruiting adequate numbers of suitably qualified tutors and trainers. They were asked to take on an additional workload to address the backlog issue and, to their credit, they did so. Going a step further by asking them to do this work out of regular hours in the evening time would be a big change for them but it is something we can discuss. I cannot give the Deputy a commitment in this regard now but I thank him for raising this interesting suggestion.