An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Dail Éireann — 2024-04-16
============================================================

Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I share Deputy McDonald's view on the importance of apprenticeships. I was very pleased as Minister for further and higher education to see the highest number of newly registered apprentices ever in the history of the State last year. That is a good thing. We have also seen the expansion of the number of apprenticeship programmes. That is also a good thing. The Deputy is right that some people are waiting too long. The numbers are now falling, though, and SOLAS has produced a plan, which I know Deputy Mairéad Farrell will be familiar with, to eradicate the backlog for those waiting longer than they should be in terms of their phase 2 training. I will get Deputy McDonald the most up-to-date figures. I will write to her on the matter.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-04-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-04-16