National Training Fund (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-11
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

I thank the Acting Chairperson for those kind words and her support with facilitating this session today.
I thank the Seanad, more generally, for facilitating the passage of this Bill because it was something that was important to get through by year end so that we can begin to spend this money in 2026. It has been talked about for a long time but, finally, we can begin to open it up and do it. I will reply insofar as I can to the individual contributions and maybe make some general points.
I thank Senator Ryan. The phrase "a rich tapestry" the Senator used is apt. It is a rich tapestry. It is broad and deep. I was in UCD this morning at a conference on space. I was out yesterday meeting apprentices. I have met people across many fields of research, innovation, higher education and further education in the time I have been in this role and it has only been a short ten months. It really is very broad and wide and there is great passion across every sector and across every learner who I meet and, indeed, all the tutors.
It very much is, as Senator Ryan said, an economic portfolio because this is how we build the skilled workforce and labour force and talent of the future. Our people are our greatest national asset. We have a knowledge and skills economy, and to keep that rolling, as Senator Daly said, we need the pipeline of people coming through it to keep that going. That is true.
I will touch briefly on the Centre for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, CRIS, in UL. I visited it, with Senator Ryan and Deputy Crowe, a few months ago. I was also very impressed. The Taoiseach, as the Senator said, also visited it. In a world where we have increasing strategic importance in things such as subsea cables and strategic security, CRIS can only play a greater role. While it is not strictly an NTF-funded project, using the INSPIRE research fund, which is a €750 million fund for research infrastructure and research equipment and upgrades, I would envisage that the likes of CRIS may be in a position to pitch into that competitive tender process in the new year. It is exactly the kind of project that I hope will get some momentum from the various funding initiatives that I am creating.
Senator Tully asked about a number of things and I will try to address them. First of all, on the consultation with business, the Senator will be pleased to hear I have consulted widely with both IBEC and ISME. I have met them and engaged them in correspondence. I would like to think that their concerns have been addressed. Initially, they particularly took issue with the idea of decarbonisation being a pattern. What I have said to them, and I think they are more reassured now, is that, first of all, the Bill remains absolutely true to its original purpose, as in the Act of 2000, to support the skills of those in employment or seeking to take up employment or to provide information as to future and current skills needs. That remains the sole purpose of the Bill and that has not been changed at all in the legislation.
I suppose where they might have had a query, and we touched on this in the debate already, is that we need to provide facilities to provide training for those in employment and we cannot train people on thin air. Senator Daly gave the example of people getting out in the open air in the past where they did not have proper facilities. We are in an advanced economy. We need things like robotics in manufacturing. It is a complex world and the number of apprenticeships, in particular, continues to grow. We now have the wind turbine maintenance apprenticeship, which I saw with Senator Kennelly in Kerry not so long ago. The facility is there in Tralee. We have cybersecurity apprenticeships. We have original equipment manufacturer, OEM, manufacturing apprenticeships. Then we have all our craft skills such as our electricians, our plumbers and our tradespeople so critical to our national emissions, particularly in regard to housing and building out the infrastructure. All those people need a roof over their heads and four walls. More than that, they need proper state-of-the-art facilities and equipment under which to train and that is where we go the capital piece of this. In some cases, it may be considered that a particular facility is right for repurposing. I visited a centre in Killybegs recently, for example, where we are now providing electrician and refrigerator apprenticeships. That was an old building. It had many uses dating back over a century and it is now being used as a state-of-the-art apprenticeship school. I make no apology for supporting the refit and refurbishment of such buildings to bring them back into productive use for the benefit of training and of the economy.
There are examples like that all over the country. That is exactly what we are enabling. Having had that conversation with ISME and IBEC, they are somewhat reassured by that because this is about training people up to take up productive positions in employment and utilising all the assets available to us to do that, including both greenfield and brownfield sites.
Senator Tully mentioned Cavan and some courses being postponed at one stage or maybe even cancelled. I am not familiar with the individual situation but each ETB is autonomous. Each ETB has its own independence and makes its own decision about funding. They are funded through SOLAS, which, in turn, is funded by my Department. SOLAS has record levels of funding. It has never had more funding than it has now. This year was another record year for funding and it got over €1 billion. How it manages, allocates and prioritises that is up to SOLAS. Ultimately, it will have to make localised decisions about what they fund or do not.
There was a bottleneck on apprentices earlier this year, which is still an unfortunate hangover from Covid because it has taken a while to work through the system. I directed that apprenticeship training should be prioritised. That was key for all the reasons we have been talking about in this debate. Some ETBs may have chosen to move other courses around to facilitate that. In terms of money and support from my Department, it has never had more. That is something I am very engaged on and working with SOLAS on at the moment.
I thank Senator Harmon and the Labour Party for their support for the Bill. We have had some very good debates on it in both Houses with the Senator and her colleagues. She mentioned the PhD stipend and the research piece. There is an issue there in the sense that the PhD stipends, which are provided by the State through Tailte Éireann and State agencies, are now at a level of €25,000. There are some privately sponsored PhD students who tend to be reasonably well remunerated. There are some from various schemes and funds which are outside the control of my Department and my remit which are not yet at that level. It is a conversation I will continue to have with the higher education institutes, HEIs, to see if we can raise that level. We have set an ambition of €25,000 as the base level of stipend. Any I fund through my agencies will be at that level but we absolutely have a bit of work to do on the broader point.
Senator Daly talked about TUS Athlone and Senator Ryan talked about Limerick. I will not referee there but I am a big supporter of balanced regional development. It is to be hoped there will be plenty for everybody. The Senator had a question about the Minister for Finance and what the mechanics of the fund are. It is a good question. The Minister for Finance and his agencies will manage the fund, its investments and interest - it is a very significant amount of money - but discretion rests with me in terms of the spending and allocation of it. It will work through the Houses in terms of Votes and Estimates. On that point, the question arose if it should be from the Exchequer. It is the Exchequer because the ceilings for expenditure are the same. Unfortunately, we do not get an extra top up from the NTF. The NTF, along with the voted Estimate, is the sum total of the Department's ceiling. In a way, it is all the one set of money from an accounting perspective so we cannot exceed it by going in different ways.
Senator Kennelly made a number of points. In terms of the employer levy, I welcome the Senator's support and positive words about the initiative in the Bill today. Something to note is that the employer's levy includes public sector employers as well. It is not just the private sector. The private sector plays such a major role in our economic direction and I always thank the private sector for its enterprise, which creates the resources to satisfy the public good. I am very much apprised of the work of the private sector, but just to note the public sector also makes a significant contribution. Every public sector employer in the country pays the levy also. A number of years ago, there were various, narrow sectoral funds through different levies and it was very messy and convoluted. Some time ago, it was decided the NTF was the best vehicle for a single fund and single employer levy. Of course, a number of years back, the Government increased that by 0.1% per year between 2018 and 2020 to reach the 1% it is at now. That is where that arose from.
In short, I hope I have answered some of the queries that arose. If Members do want to follow up with me afterwards on any particular issue, I am very happy to take them offline. I thank the Seanad for making the space available today to do this. I think I am back here next week for the next Stage.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11