About 2,000 apprentices cannot complete their training because the Government does not have enough places for them at third level.
According to Freedom of Information documents obtained by The Irish Times, the Department of Education and Science is in "an embarrassing position" over the backlog of apprentices, many of whom are working without qualifications.
This situation is outlined by a Department of Education official to an official in the Department of Finance, in documents about the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) move to a new campus at Grangegorman in north Co Dublin.
DIT and other institutes of technology are the only colleges entitled to train apprentices and DIT cannot take many more until it moves to Grangegorman. The apprentices have to complete phases four and six of their certificate at the colleges.
The huge growth in construction activity has triggered high demand for apprentices and caused huge pressure on the colleges. The Department of Education has asked the colleges to run summer courses to clear the backlog. The Teachers' Union of Ireland was holding a meeting last night to consider its response.
In the Freedom of Information documents, Mr Paddy McDonagh of DIT says "we are crying out for additional apprentice capacity generally and particularly in the Dublin area. Our inability in this area is generating increasing criticism from union and employer sources." Mr McDonagh says if the backlog is not addressed, FAS, which administers the apprenticeship courses, may argue that it should provide phases four and six of the training, not the colleges.
Sources in the institutes of technology said yesterday that a major difficulty in dealing with the apprentice problem was the lack of teaching staff.
"If you want to teach fitters, you need to hire a fitter as a teacher and many of them are not interested because they are earning more money in the private sector," said one senior source. The cost of apprenticeship courses is another major problem for the colleges. For example, a one-year apprenticeship course in one of the mainstream trades costs about £7,000.
The documents also reveal that the Department of Finance has adopted a report by a senior AIB executive, Mr Donal De Buitleir, on third-level student numbers. Distributed to Government departments last year, it says the number of full-time places should be held at 114,000, unless the skills needs of the economy radically change.