Amendment No. 60 proposes that a person may not be appointed as chief executive where he or she has been directly employed by the Government or a Minister thereof within the preceding three years. In short, we feel this is not an appropriate amendment because it would narrow the field of potential suitable candidates for the role of CEO of the HEA. Amendment No. 61 proposes that a person appointed as chief executive may not hold shares with a value in excess of €30,000. The CEO of the HEA is required to be in compl…

Amendments Nos. 62 to 64, inclusive, propose to include provisions that the Minister shall, in the preparation of the strategy have regard to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Act 2014 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Environmental development and sustainability are already included in the provisions that the Minister shall have regard to. The Minister is required to have regard to any national policies that are relev…

I made a comment-----

I made a comment regarding amendments Nos. 113 and 141, which are part of this grouping. On amendment No. 113, the governing authority has the authority under section 34(2) of the Universities Act 1997 to approve a strategic development plan "without modification or, after consultation with the chief officer, approve the plan with such modifications as it thinks fit". Therefore, the intent of the amendment is deemed to be reflected in the Bill. Amendment No. 141 proposes to amend the provision on the consultation b…

I do not think the Senator spoke to that amendment, did she?

That is okay.

I note I may have to step out for the Dáil vote.

It is due any minute.

I thank all the Senators for their contributions with regard to this grouping of amendments. Amendment No. 28 seeks to delete the function in section 9(1)(c) to "secure and evidence value for money in the expenditure by An tÚdarás of moneys provided to it under section 19 " and replace it with "ensure financial transparency in designated higher education institutions and effective expenditure of An tÚdarás of public monies provided to it.” It should be noted that section 9(1)(m) provides for the function to "assess…

Amendments Nos. 43 to 45, inclusive, propose to amend section 10(2). Amendment No. 44 would change "shall comply with" to "may consider", while amendment No 43. states, "An tÚdarás shall comply with any directions concerning the engagement of consultants and advisers which may from time to time be given to it by the Minister, given with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, and any such engagements shall be subject to an appropriate and transparent process." Section 10(1) states, "An tÚdará…

I can address that later.

We can keep going.

I thank the Deputy. A key objective of the action plan for apprenticeships for 2021 to 2025 is to ensure that the apprenticeship system will increase its contribution to meeting Ireland's skills and human capital requirements by delivering on a target of 10,000 apprenticeship registrations per annum by 2025. At the end of June, there had been 3,057 apprentice registrations, made up of 2,667 craft and 390 consortia-led registrations. In 2021, a record 8,607 new apprentices were registered in the apprenticeship syste…

I thank the Deputy. There are currently 65 apprenticeship programmes on offer, 25 of which are craft programmes. Some 40 programmes have been introduced since 2016 and eight new programmes were launched over the period of 2020 to 2021, despite the pandemic. Those programmes relate to arboriculture, equipment systems engineering, healthcare assistance, principal engineering, professional doctorates, recruitment sales executives, scaffolding and supply chain associates. The bar manager apprenticeship was launched ear…

Deputy Stanton raised the local training initiatives previously and the points that he raised are quite valid. That is something that we flagged to the national apprenticeship office and its new director in terms of the work she is doing. I am confident that the issues the Deputy is flagging is an area she is looking at. On the manpower planning and regional skills, we have, as the Deputy will know, a network of regional skills managers. We have nine regional skills managers around the country who are linked in to …

Yes.

I will be telling the Deputy about all of these when I reply to the debate. If the Deputy meets me on Monday, we can go through them.

Sunday is a working day.

There is nothing to stop the Deputy coming to the debate on the next Stage.

There is no conspiracy to hold over anything. Mass conspiracy does not exist.