Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2021-09-15
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I do not disagree with the Deputy. The pathways to work strategy we launched in July is very heavily weighted towards, and focused on, skills and upskilling. The key to work is more on the skills side than on the cliff edges and anomalies side. We have to do everything we possibly can to provide people with the wherewithal on skills education to enable them to access a wide range of employment opportunities. The apprenticeship programmes, including, for example, the national action plan on apprenticeships, is yielding results. There are incentives in that for employers. We want to get to 10,000 new apprenticeship registrations per year by 2025. We are on target to achieve that. The Department of Social Protection, SOLAS, working with the education and training boards, ETBs, and the further education sector, are the key nexus in terms of the skills, work and return to education agendas.
We need to provide more flexible learning models and modules for people to access with a view to gaining employment. That is the key, in my view, to enabling people to get work that is sustainable in the future and allows progression.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-09-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-09-15