Apprenticeship Programmes
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-02
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Eoghan Kenny (LAB), Cork North-Central

I am willing to work with the Minister on this. Our objective should be to remove barriers and not create them. If Ireland is to meet its future skills need, we must make apprenticeships as visible, accessible and attractive as every other education pathway. I welcome the Minister's views. This CAO style application system for apprenticeships is not going to happen overnight but that is the ambition the Department should have. It is the ambition we should have in this House as policymakers and public representatives. There is an opportunity to give every young person across the country, no matter what pathway they want to go down, the best possible opportunity to access that pathway. That includes a centralised application system like the one we have for those who are heading into undergraduate programmes to provide them, as the Minister said, with a one-stop-shop. That is the level of engagement we must have with those young people who are seeking apprenticeships but also with career guidance teachers, employers who are willing to take on apprenticeships and the higher institutions.

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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