Education Committee to examine the support of skills and apprenticeships in Ireland

The Committee on Education and Skills will tomorrow hold both Joint and Select Committee meetings. The Joint Committee will consider submissions received in relation to the Committee's review of Skills and Apprenticeship schemes. Presenting to the Committee, will be representatives from the Building and Allied Trades' Union (BATU), the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) the Centre of Craft Studies at Cork Institute of Technology, the Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI), the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) and SOLAS.

Separately, the Select Committee will meet with the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton TD, to resume consideration of the 2017 Revised Estimates for Public Services - Vote 26 (Programme B).

The Select meeting will commence at 4.00pm in Committee Room 2 tomorrow, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 and the Joint meeting will follow at 5.15pm.

Committee Chairperson, Fiona O’Loughlin TD, said “A specialised skills development system and apprenticeship programme is key to the success of a modern, functioning economy that provides skilled employees to industry. Tomorrow, we will have the opportunity to hear more from those directly involved in the area about how we are performing, where we can improve and what are the expected employment trends in the future and how these can be matched with appropriate training schemes, to provide jobs nationally.”

“The recent announcement of additional funding, attached to ambitious targets such as the provision of 50,000 apprenticeship and traineeship registrations by 2020, is to be welcomed, of course, but there are certainly more areas to which we can apply the skills development and apprenticeship models and tomorrow Members will have a chance to explore this idea further.”

Committee proceedings can be viewed live here.

Further information on Estimates can be found here.

Committee proceedings can also be viewed on the move, through the Houses of the Oireachtas Smartphone App, available for Apple and Android devices.