Reform of the apprenticeship system has been on the agenda for 20 years and it is not satisfactory that the Minister should tell us at this stage that one of the key issues, equity of access to apprenticeships, is still unresolved and expect us to take in good faith that FÁS will produce a solution in the course of the Bill's passage through the House. Frankly, I do not believe FÁS will be able to do so. We should not be debating this Bill when such an important component is still not in place. As I said before we adjourned, it is clearly envisaged in the draft scheme that FÁS will keep a register of people interested in apprenticeships. That is the type of system that has brought discredit on FÁS. The last thing people want to do is to turn up at FÁS offices to put their name at the end of a long list which everyone knows will not be used by employers when recruiting apprentices. The scheme makes it quite clear that recruitment of apprentices will be the responsibility of employers and it makes it equally clear that employers have no obligation to consult this so-called register.
In the Bill it is stated that the register will be brought to the attention of employers on request. Clearly that is not satisfactory. It is not intended that FÁS will sponsor apprenticeships under the new scheme so that the traditional gateway for people who do not have a background in a particular trade or skill of going to FÁS and getting an opportunity to compete for a place on an apprenticeship is wiped out by this reform. That is not acceptable. I think FÁS should be doing the screening and shortlisting of applicants for apprenticeships, and it should then present a short list of suitable people for interview if the employers are going to recruit people to apprenticeships. FÁS would then be the main determinant of suitability. This would allow FÁS to control factors, such as the 10 per cent intake of women, to which the Minister has committed herself. There is absolutely no guarantee that employers on a random selection will meet any quota in regard to disabilities, gender balance and so on.
The recent report of the Commission on the Status of Women lays it on the line that it wants to see a timescale in which the target will be achieved and that the target should be achieved step by step so that in each year we would set a target and know how we had performed against it. The reality is that under this scheme the Government will have no control over meeting the target unless it decides to subsidise employers to discriminate in favour of women. That will add to the cost burden of the scheme for which the taxpayer is already providing very substantial sums.
My main point is that I find it very difficult to accept this Bill against the background of that issue being unresolved. Of course, I will listen to what the Minister has to say in the course of Committee and Report Stages. However, at this stage I am sceptical about the role of FÁS because this issue has been through committees and subcommittees of the social partners for the past 20 years and it is very hard to believe that a chief executive or any other inspired person in FÁS will produce a solution to this question which appears to have defied solution in the 20 years to date.
I welcome the change of emphasis to the attainment of standards in place of serving time. That is a positive change. I welcome also that there will be specified period of off-the-job training phased throughout the period of apprenticeship. However, I question whether the envisaged period of off-the-job training of 40 weeks is adequate. It certainly would not be adequate that ten weeks per year be allocated to off-the-job training. One of the main advantages of moving to a system of attainment of standards is that there would not be an obligation on apprentices to serve for a period of four years as their performance would be judged on the attainment of standard.
As we are reforming our leaving certificate programme to encourage students to take a vocational element for that examination, it is clear that in the future more young people will leave second level education with much of the prior work done to equip them to complete apprenticeships quickly and effectively. How does the Minister propose, though, to gel the new leaving certificate qualification for a vocational stream with entry into apprenticeships?
It was interesting to see the recent NESC report on education and training, which showed that currently only 20 per cent of our pupils take vocational options compared with 50 to 60 per cent in Denmark and the Netherlands. In reforming the apprenticeship scheme we should look at the models in other countries where more people take vocational modules in their basic training.
I can see what the Minister is driving at in proposing to extend apprenticeships to a wider range of trades, but are we unwittingly going to end up with loading more and more of our training occupations into an apprenticeship system which has proved to be inflexible and difficult to reform? When the Minister has achieved her target will we perhaps in five years' time be trying to reform the system to get something which is flexible and will respond to the needs of the workplace? We all want to see certification so that qualified people can have a standard that will be useful to them in other countries, but it is wrong to reverse training opportunities in a wide range of occupations into a system where the employers are controlling the entry. In a few years time we could find that there is even more social exclusion as a result of decisions taken now. I challenged the Minister to produce hard evidence that we are not making errors which we will regret.
I am worried that many of the apprenticeships are in industries which are in serious decline. The furniture industry is in serious difficulties. There has been a 10 per cent decline in the building industry in the last three years. When the State produced figures on unemployment in the building industry, they were astronomical and indicated that 25 per cent of building industry workers were unemployed. The trends were so awful that the Government did not produce figures they would not like to stand over.
Are we developing a very expensive system of training for skills that are in decline? We must provide for people in these areas, but it raises serious questions about who will control entry into these skills. When there is overcapacity in a skill and many people with the skill are unemployed, there could be significant pressure from employers, who want to recruit a family member or to do a favour for someone, to recruit such people into an apprenticeship opportunity in a sector which is already oversupplied. Are we handing over to employers the decisions about the levels of intake for these different skills? I did not hear from the Minister how decisions about intake will be made and that is critical.
FÁS has projected that a growth of 7,000 skilled people in the building industry will be needed in the next six or eight years. If we had proper data on the skill base of our unemployed we might find that considerable numbers have the skills which we are gearing our training system to provide. The newly recruited apprentice will clearly be much more attractive to an employer than someone who has completed training perhaps 20 years earlier and has been unemployed for six months. We must balance the numbers of entrants against proper information on the skill base of the unemployed. It is an indictment of successive Governments that we have not compiled appropriate information on the skill base and capacities of the unemployed. Up to 1988 we had limited information, but that has not been replaced. We need to tailor commitments made in the training area to the people already there and to make appropriate decisions about the numbers who will be trained in different skills at the taxpayers' expense.
The levy is the core of this Bill, and I have some difficulties about it. We are adding another quarter of 1 per cent to employment costs. I recently spoke to a prominent business person in the services sector who told me that when businesses have paid 21 per cent PRSI, 21 per cent VAT and 40 per cent profits tax, they find that they have only 3p in the pound left to keep the businesses going. The Minister may say that a quarter of 1 per cent is not very much, but it is still a quarter of one penny out of the 3p they have to keep the business going. In many businesses the quarter of 1 per cent can be critical.
I recognise that Ireland has a problem in that our employers have not been spontaneously willing to make commitments to training, as has been the case in other countries, and we are short of instruments to encourage people to get involved in training. The levy system, plus the apprenticeship, is a bit like the old levy and grant system which was discredited and abolished. The principle of it was clearly attractive in that people paid the levy and then were encouraged to draw down the benefit by recruiting. The principle in this proposal is attractive and businesses should see the value in taking on apprentices. I hope employers will respond in that way, but I have misgivings about the fact that it costs another quarter of 1 per cent on top of a series of levies already there and there is no threshold. It will clearly be a heavier burden on employers who employ lower paid workers.
The proposal has all the undesirable features of levies as a system of taxation. I am disappointed that something a little bit more imaginative was not put together to produce an equitable lvey which would get a commitment to this scheme from employers. Given that the Minister has assured us that employers have signed on for this scheme, we will have to give it the benefit of the doubt, hope that it works out that we see a greater commitment to training as a result.
The jury is out in regard to the success of this scheme. The one quarter of the 1 per cent levy reduces the Minister's leverage in negotiating a fairer system of entry into the trade. Employers will regard themselves as having paid the piper and should, therefore, call the tune. If the Minister is determined to have equitable recruitment the one quarter of the 1 per cent levy imposed on employers may run counter to her determination. Employers will believe they have rights which they purchased by their tax payment and can, therefore, decide who should be recruited to the apprenticeship system. We will not know the credibility of this proposal until we see the Minister's final proposals about the system of recruitment and her negotiations with employers.
The issue of multi-skilling causes me considerable concern. The reports published by Culliton and Tansey and Roche highlighted the weaknesses in our training regime. Many of their findings are irrelevant to this debate, but they highlighted the lack of multi-skilling as a feature of the Irish workforce. Will reform of the apprenticeship system address that matter? In my view the designation system based on traditional demarcations is heading in the opposite direction to multi-skilling. The introduction of multi-skilling should mean the abolition of demarcations. We should produce flexible apprenticeships with modules that major in one skill and at the same time, carry important modules in others. That is not provided for in the Minister's proposal. Rather, it appears the old demarcations have rumbled on into this system and we will be lumbered with what existed for the past 20 years.
Some people believe that system has served us well and, in general, employers believe that FÁS contributed to the success of the scheme and that should be acknowledged. However, are we flying in the face of those we pay to recommend where we should go in the future and who have said that multi-skilling must become a feature in this system? Perhaps this system has evolved because traditionally it required low standards of entry and the introduction of multi-skilling will mean people will require higher educational qualifications. That matter must be addressed also.
The Minister stated that the apprenticeship scheme should be open to people from the age of 16 who have obtained five grade Ds in their junior certificate but most people would not encourage students to leave school after sitting their junior certificate. Have we faced up to that issue in introducing this apprenticeship scheme? Should we not encourage such people to sit the leaving certificate and tailor the leaving certificate programme to encourage them to do so? In that way, when they enter the apprenticeship system they would have the multi-skilling requirements and the flexibility we are told they will have to embrace in their future working lives.
There is a hint of the past about the reform we are being asked to take on board today which causes me a great deal of unease. I accept we are only debating the levy and not the apprenticeship system, but we are making do with second best in relation to reform of the apprenticeship programme.
It is interesting to note from documentation published by FÁS that the representation of women in some skilled areas is not as low as one would expect. For example, out of a total of 86,000 employed in the skilled production area, 15,000 are women, much more than 10 per cent. Perhaps we are setting a low target by aiming at 10 per cent. I would like to hear the Minister's view on how she expects to attract more women into the non-traditional areas of employment. The pre-apprenticeship training programme plays an important role in that regard but girls do not have an opportunity to study some of those subjects at school. In other words, they are closed off at an early stage.
I am sure Members from all sides will welcome the fact that there will be independent certification. I did not have an adequate opportunity to study the Minister's contribution in detail, but I hope she will not base those certifications on the British system. Rather, we should base them on the European model as recommended in many studies. Evaluation is critical. Under this legislation we are imposing a tax on employers and a duty on taxpayers to pick up the balance. Equally, there should be a commitment in the legislation to evaluation in the public area. It is frustrating that any significant evaluation by FÁS were carried out in private and public representatives, who are expected to debate the value for money of State expenditure were not allowed access.
During the recent debates on the national plan, it was particularly frustrating that we did not have access to basic information on the success of existing programmes. That is particularly apposite of FÁS because, as far as I am aware, the statistics on which the evaluation for the last round of Structural Funds spending by FÁS were carried out in 1989. They were compiled before the programme was initiated and we were expected to accept the worth of programmes based on figures collected as far back as 1989. A proper evaluation must be carried out in public involving the social partners, particularly employers, who are being asked to pay for this scheme. It must also involve others with skills in the evaluation of programmes. It should not be left up to FÁS to evaluate its work. Nobody should be allowed to make judge and jury decisions about the value of his or her work. This programme should be evaluated aginst pre-set targets.
The Minister should tell us the targets she expects the apprenticeship programme to achieve in respect of, for example, multi-skilling, the number of placements, the access of women to courses, the standards reached and so on. We must have pre-set targets so that we know where the money is being spent, following which there must be an evaluation to ensure we achieve those targets. We must compare ourselves with other countries. A series of studies have been carried out in the past six months by NESC, the Culliton group and Anto Kerins which compared training here with that in other countries and, universally, we are not up to scratch. We must continually evaluate ourselves against our competitors and that is critical in regard to apprenticeships.
