Apprenticeship Programmes
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-02
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

I entirely agree. I thank Deputy Kenny for his support and the support of his party on the broader policy initiative. What he says is true. I have visited MTU in Tralee. I have visited all of the different technological universities, TUs, and their components at least once, if not a few times. I recently held a construction skills roundtable event in UCD where we brought together the employers in the construction space, the trade unions and the training agencies - SOLAS, the ETBs and the HEA for a conversation on exactly that.
The Deputy touched on our ambition as a Government to build housing and infrastructure at scale, be it the metro, the DART+ projects, the roads network, renewable energy or the energy grid. We are investing significantly in all of these under the national development plan, with a budget of over €200 billion over the lifetime of the Government. To meet infrastructure, housing and other needs, we must have the capacity to build this out. That requires multiple craft apprenticeships coming on stream and being supported, and having that pipeline of talent coming through. I am committed to driving that on. It is a key part of our national initiative.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:14+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-02