236. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Education and Skills the reason the payment of wages for apprentices in ETB centres has been changed to fortnightly rather than weekly. [4767/20]

Craft apprentices undertaking off-the-job training have traditionally been paid by the education and training boards (ETBs) during their off-the-job phases of training. This payment is moving to a shared services payroll which is provided by the Education Shared Business Services (ESBS).

The reasons for the move are that the existing IT systems are approaching end of life with an increasing risk of failure and also that apprentice off-the-job training payments are subject to Income Tax, USC and PRSI. The ESBS payroll is the system available to the Department of Education and Skills to return the relevant payment information to Revenue and this system is run on a fortnightly basis.