The Covid crisis has demonstrated the need and opportunity for radical reform in education, further education and higher education. I ask the Tánaiste to make a world-class apprenticeship platform a key part of the recovery plan post Covid. We need to stop blaming parents as hampering the development of apprenticeships. As Gaeilge, cá bhfuil an fhís chomhpháirteach le haghaidh an phrintísigh? Where is the collective will to provide equal esteem for apprenticeships? We do not have a system where the senior cycle allows people to develop a portfolio leading to apprenticeship, we have no Central Applications Office, CAO, in respect of apprenticeships, no quota from the public service for apprentices and no collective agreements incorporating apprenticeships. We need to inject urgency into the glacial reform of the leaving certificate and to put lead into the pencil of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, and the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, because without that, we will not deliver this programme.

I thank the Deputy. I know this is an issue that the Minister, Deputy Harris, and Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, are very interested in and committed to. We are in the process of a major overhaul of the apprenticeship system, creating more apprenticeships, different types of apprenticeships and also, from my side, helping to encourage employers to take on more apprentices. We want to increase the number of apprenticeships to 10,000 every year, which would be significant. We need apprentices because the areas in which they are trained, particularly construction, crafts and so on, are essential. We need more younger people taking up careers in those areas and we are going to push for that in the next few years.