Minister Humphreys meets with the ETB and Combilift early this year when the apprenticeship scheme was discussed.

Six apprenticeships announced at cmetb

Sean McMahon

Published: Tue 4 Aug 2015, 4:05 PM

Last updated: Tue 4 Aug 2015, 5:14 PM

Cavan Monaghan ETB last week received ministerial approval to develop six new apprenticeships out of 25 announced by the Minister for Education, Jan O’Sullivan, TD and it is hoped to have these up and running in a relatively short time, once they have been formulated.
The Chief Executive of the CMETB Martin O’Brien, who is a member of the Apprenticeship Council, says when this development stage is complete they will be in a position to offer apprenticeships.
This news coincides with the fact that a date for the initial transfer of the first €6.8 million budget from the Louth-Meath ETB, has now been set for September 28. When the full training function is up and running in Cavan and Monaghan, the full budget is expected to be approximately €10 million.
Cavan Monaghan ETB had earlier made submissions to develop six new apprenticeships for Ireland and last week the Minister along with the Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English, TD, announced the scheme.

Traineeships
Two of the apprenticeships courses relating to Combilift and the Irish Road Haulage Association are almost exclusively under the remit of CMETB.
Mr O’Brien said that traineeships at Monaghan Institute will commence in the new academic year and this will then be formally developed into an apprenticeship which will attract National Certification and Accreditation.
He explained that together with Fasttrack to IT, CMETB will be developing two apprenticeships in the IT area and they will be rolled out across Cavan and Monaghan. A Commis Chef apprenticeship will come under the remit of Cavan Institute.
Mr O’Brien said that over the past two years he has had to devote a lot of time to the aggregating Cavan and Monaghan VECs and systems, realigning staff and their duties and functions and this is now almost complete.

Cavan barracks
“In addition, I have had to make arrangements and plans for incorporating our new Training Function and for accepting a budget which is expected to be in the region of €7million to €10million from Louth Meath ETB and the date is now set for this transfer,” said Martin O’Brien.
Mr O’Brien says now that all the restructuring has been completed, the next plan is to utilise the barracks in Cavan.
“We will be seeking to develop sections of the Barracks in Cavan and the first part of that development work is underway,” he said.
The Chief Executive’s focus has now shifted to that re-development work and The Anglo-Celt understands that some important announcements will be made on this front shortly.