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

I wish to take the opportunity to thank the higher and further education committee for its work on the report on apprenticeships, which I received in February, led by Deputy McGreehan and supported by Deputy Kenny and others in the House. There are 48 actions in that which will be considered. I will action as many of them as I can in the next round of the action plan. We are engaging in second level schools. There is a documentary on careers that has been circulated. The National Apprenticeship Office has done some very good work around the promotion of apprenticeships and options and trying to remove any barriers that may exist and raise awareness. The Deputy is also correct that second level is the key point. That is where people make choices about their future career paths. Engagement with career guidance counsellors and secondary schools more broadly is something we certainly look at more. I will work with the Minister, Deputy Naughton, in the second level system around pathways there and look to promote that. We will continue to try to centralise information to have a one-stop-shop, whether a person is going down a university path, apprenticeship path or tertiary path, to ensure we have a place we can point people to and where all the information is freely available.

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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