Sinn Féin spokesperson for Higher Education, Mairéad Farrell, said the confusion around ‘dual qualification’ apprenticeships is seeing apprentices drop out of their courses and has left many others would be graduates in limbo.

The candidate for Galway West, having engaged with electrical instrumentation apprentices, said that many who have undertaken this course were led to believe that it would also result in graduates being qualified electricians (dual qualification).

However, many are now being informed this is not the case and are dropping out of their courses, to re-register on the electrical apprenticeship. She said that this was another indication of the mess that the government and SOLAS have made of the craft system.

Mairéad Farrell:

“Essentially what these apprentices were told was that the electrical instrumentation apprenticeship would be an electrical apprenticeship with a bonus qualification of instrumentation on top. Akin to being dually qualified tradespeople upon completion.

“It was supposed to represent a kind of new hybrid apprentice, as both electrical and instrumentation can both be done separately.

“Employers were sold on the idea as it would supposedly represent a more prestigious qualification with their qualified tradespeople having a broader range of skills. They were sold on the idea as it would apparently make them more employable. They had to take on additional ‘off the job’ training, as they have a greater study load due to the dual aspect of their studies.

“This whole apprenticeship has now been invalidated by a recent decision of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) to deny them being registered electricians with Safe Electric.’

“One apprentice from Galway I talked to is in phase 6. Along with 64 other lads in his class, who are a month away from their final exam, have just learned they won’t be qualified as electricians now. As he told me in no uncertain terms, none of them would have pursued this apprenticeship if they had known this was the outcome.’

“This demonstrates once again the utter failure of this government in relation to the craft apprenticeship system. Something the Taoiseach Simon Harris presided over for years. I warned him repeatedly about the crises that have been brewing over the last two and half years.

“The major backlogs in ‘off the job’ training, the fact they were having to work for less for longer, the huge numbers dropping out, and now we have courses which will not even meet the qualification they were sold on. I raised all of this with Minister Harris and his response was to try to throw money at the situation, and then leave the mess for his successor to clean up.

“Is it any wonder Fine Gael have failed so miserably on housing when they treat the next generation of our construction sector workforce so terribly. He needs to intervene now, with something substantial and not just another pre-election soundbite.”