The Government plans to double the annual intake of apprenticeships in order to meet the targets set under the Housing for All programme.
€4 billion a year of public money is being invested in the housing programme and it's already been identified that 27,000 more construction workers will be needed to be involved in residential building.
The Minister for Public Expenditure told a Cork Chamber Breakfast Briefing that currently there are 10,000 people who are unemployed whose last job was in the construction industry and it's vital that they are enabled to return to work.
Minister Michael McGrath outlined how he expects to see a shift from office construction to residential construction and it's vital that there are enough qualified construction workers to meet the demand.
"We do have an action plan on apprentice ships which we launched in recent months from this year out to 2025, and the ambition is to double the annual intake of apprenticeships to 20,000.
"The funding is there. At the end of the day if we don't have the workers to do the work, and we all know the labour pressures that are there at the moment in a range of sectors, then we'll struggle to meet the potential that is there."
