Apprenticeships and retention
Senator Tully outlined a committee report on apprenticeships and the need to keep apprentices in Ireland or entice them home from abroad.
I am a member of the committee on further and higher education. Last week, we published a report on apprenticeships that looked at how to improve apprenticeships for young people but also how to improve it for everyone involved. Part of that was how to encourage them not to go abroad or encourage those already abroad to come back and work here in Ireland. Quite a lot of money has been spent on adverts by the Government abroad encouraging Irish people to come back to Ireland to work. I was talking to one young man who had qualified as a mechanic, went to Australia to work for 18 months and decided to return home. He had bought tools over there because they were not provided by the employer - some of them were new, some were second-hand - and decided to bring them home because if he had gone to sell them before he left, he would have got very little for them. He has been hit with a customs bill of €2,000. Can the Minister not look at some sort of incentive so that this does not happen to people who are returning here and bringing the tools of their trade home, not to sell on, but to use in this country? Other governments will advertise here for Irish people to go abroad and all sorts of incentives will be offered, such as free travel and so forth. Irish people who are returning pay for their travel and that is fine, but he has been hit with a bill of €2,000. He has no option but to pay it because if he does not, he will be charged for storage until he gets the money together and pays it. He will pay it and I think there may be some sort of an appeal process, but he is not happy to rely on that and feels it is an issue that should be highlighted and have something done to address it. It is a cost that young people returning here should not have to pay.