Ireland's Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development Damien English has officially launched the country's Geo Drilling Apprenticeship.
The two year level 6 Apprenticeship is sponsored by Geoscience Ireland and will be delivered by the Institute of Technology at Carlow.
Speaking at the launch at at Tara Mines Ltd, English commented that the highly skilled occupation of geo drilling is central to the geoscience underlying infrastructure development, housing, mining, quarrying and groundwater supplies. He emphasised the government’s commitment to developing more apprenticeships. The Minister had earlier been responsible for the development of the SFI funded Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geoscience (iCRAG).
The Steering Committee for the Apprenticeship was drawn from employers (drilling companies and mine and quarry operators), Irish Water, the Federation of Group Water Schemes, GSI, the Irish Mining & Quarrying Society (IMQS) and SIPTU.
Dr Frances Hardiman, head of engineering at IT Carlow, said that the Institute has a long track record in providing apprenticeship training in construction and engineering skills and welcomed the addition of drilling to that skill set.
Eoghan O’Neill, HR Manager for Boliden Tara Mines, welcomed the apprentices, employers and agencies supporting the scheme. He said that Tara is committed to apprenticeship development and will deploy four candidates in the initial group of twelve commencing studies at IT Carlow in January 2020.
