Apprenticeships: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-10 ============================================================ Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel I am a member of the Joint Committee on Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, which is quite a long name. Quite a number of us in this House are members. We have been focusing on apprenticeships for the past few months and we are in the process of publishing a report. It should be published very soon. We were examining what we could do to improve the lives of our apprentices and the apprenticeship model in Ireland. In that process we met with a lot of different people. We met with employers. We met with ETBs and SOLAS. We met with unions. However, the most important voice in all of that is the voice of the apprentice. The issue for a lot of apprentices when they are taken on, particularly in the first couple of years, is the very poor rates of pay. Apprentices who presented at the committee and those I have spoken to at home in Cavan are suggesting €7 or €8.50 per hour for the second year. I was speaking to one lad. After he finished school he did a particular job or course for a few years, and then at 23 he decided to do an electrician course. He went back to earning €7 per hour. I know the rate will increase as time goes by. I know when he is qualified he will be able to charge a high rate because plumbers and electricians are like hen's teeth. You cannot get them. We need to treat our apprentices better because they are older. An employer told me at the weekend that the average age of an apprentice is 25. They are coming in older. Many of them have families. They may have a mortgage or may be renting. We need to look at some targeted financial supports for people in those positions. The option to choose where to do the off-the-job training is not given. We were looking at some sort of ranking preference where people could choose where they might want to go, and if that is not possible, they should get additional financial supports. For example, I am from Cavan. If people are doing their off-the-job training in Dundalk, Sligo or Athlone they can travel to that place every day. However, if they have to do their off-the-job training in Waterford or Cork, that is not possible. They may end up paying double rent. They are paying the rent or mortgage where they live and then they are paying rent for the few months they are away as well. Another matter is tools or equipment. Some employers are in a position to provide the tools or equipment. Bus Éireann, for example, was before the committee. It provides tools for its apprentice mechanics. Not all employers are in a position to do that. A grant for tools and equipment should be made available for those who find it a barrier to their participation. We need to create positive awareness of apprenticeships and promote examples of success. Katelyn is welcome and she is a huge success. She has done more for apprenticeships and for female participation in apprenticeships than any of us talking tonight or in previous months. By the way, she is an excellent dancer, and I wish her the best of luck on "Dancing with the Stars." We need to promote stories like that, so we encourage young people to take them up. Our career guidance is curtailed. We need increased hours in career guidance at second level. We also need our career guidance teachers to promote apprenticeships as much as they promote other third level options to our students. My son is doing his leaving certificate at the moment and his career guidance teacher has not talked to him about apprenticeships. I asked him. Anything he has heard about it is from me when he is considering different options he can take up after school. We need to see a lot more done at second level. The Minister of State mentioned the Traveller apprenticeship incentivisation programme. It is a pilot programme. I hope there are plans to make this a permanent programme, and to make sure there is long-term sustainable funding put in place to support this programme. Providing bursaries for Travellers has encouraged and increased the number of Travellers taking part. There also needs to be a link to employers for Travellers and people from other disadvantaged backgrounds, or even from rural backgrounds where there are not a lot of employers in the locality in a position to take on apprenticeships. Young people may not know who to reach out to, to get an apprenticeship. If we can put in links to employers as well it would be helpful. People with additional needs have a low representation among people taking up apprenticeships. The National Learning Network could not provide an inclusive pathway to an apprenticeship. More pre-apprenticeship places need to be made available because they are oversubscribed at the moment, and they help people from disadvantaged backgrounds to progress to an apprenticeship. All information about apprenticeships needs to be provided in an accessible way for people with learning difficulties or a disability. The curriculum needs to be adaptable to keep up with changes in modern technology and to align with what apprentices are actually doing in the on-the-job phases. We need to expand facilities and increase the number of teachers or instructors we have. There is a waiting list in certain areas for off-the-job training and people end up spending longer than they should doing their apprenticeship. It should be four years, and they may be spending five or six years. The North has a social value procurement model, which is worth considering here as well. The committee discussed how public sector participation in apprenticeships should be mandated, with targets set for under-represented groups within that. There is 10% sectional scoring in the public sector on the basis of gender, social class and people from different areas of discrimination to encourage more to be included and taken on as apprentices in the public sector. We discussed other issues such as better support for small and medium enterprises to take on apprentices and better co-operation between the National Apprenticeship Office, SOLAS and the ETBs to avoid duplication and confusion. We mentioned a central application system for apprenticeships similar to the CAO to make it easier for people of any age to progress into an apprenticeship and find out all the information. A Cavan-based company, Celtic Working Platforms Limited is involved in scaffolding. It won the small employers award at the 2025 apprenticeship employer of the year awards in December. I congratulate the company and acknowledge what it has done. Scaffolding only became an apprenticeship in 2021. I acknowledge the work this company has done employing young people and people of all ages to take up scaffolding. It is something that requires training because it can be dangerous. I am delighted and welcome that it is now an apprenticeship. --- 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/seanad/2026-02-10/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-10