Deputy Mairéad Farrell, TD for Galway West, said this week that the craft apprenticeship system is still failing young people.
The craft apprenticeship system has for years had significant problems in delivering ‘off the job’ training for craft apprentices. This means in some instances a four-year apprenticeship is taking up to six years and longer. This impacts the pay of craft apprentices as their pay is tied to the number of phases of ‘off the job’ training they have completed.
“In the last Dáil I did significant work highlighting the many failings in the craft apprenticeship system and the impact this was having on young apprentices. These are the people we need to replenish our workforce and to tackle the housing crisis,” she said.
“After much work the government was forced to acknowledge these problems. Last year as part of budget 2025, they stated they were going to provide significant additional funding to address these issues. We are yet to see the fruits of any progress. There are still major waiting lists for off the job training. I was only contacted last week by a young man who is doing the Heavy Vehicle Mechanics apprenticeship,” she added.
“He of course is very frustrated that he’s been waiting since January to be called to do phase two of his ‘off the job’ training. I reached out to SOLAS who have been the succeeding body to FÁS with responsibility for apprenticeships.’
“I was told that he should be called for training in the third quarter of 2026. That will mean this young man will have been waiting up to 21 months, provided there’s no further delays. That’s almost two years’.
“Imagine if someone was doing a law degree or an engineering degree and they were told, sorry you can’t start the second year of your course for another 21 months because we don’t have enough lecturers,” she added.
“Is it any wonder we are losing so much of our young apprentices to Australia. Its high time this government got real. Only yesterday the Taoiseach appeared before the National Economic Dialogue and stated that “fundamental reform” of the housing system has been delivered’ and they were addressing “infrastructure bottlenecks. Unfortunately, this government seems to inhabit some alternative reality to the rest of us,” she concluded.
