Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Some buses that were ordered last year are being delivered this year. From 1 July, however, no new diesel-only buses will be ordered. Any of the buses that are being bought at the moment are replacing buses that have a far worse carbon and air quality impact. As we move towards electric vehicles, one of the advantages, apart from the carbon, will be the reduction of the air pollution that goes with fossil fuel burning vehicles.

On the transition to new sectors, the Senator is right that we do need to develop the apprenticeships and traineeships. To be fair, we have been through a much larger transition in terms of the sectoral make-up with the collapse of the construction sector from 12% of employment to 1% or 2%. It blew away a lot of apprenticeships and traditional opportunities. We have managed to see these people retrained and absorbed into other sectors. We now have a much more robust mix of sectors. We have to do the same now in terms of moving from some of the more traditional fossil-dependent sectors to new sectors. We have the capacity, with a just transition strategy, to make those changes and to support people to make the changes. We will be well able to meet the needs of people in terms of retrofit of their homes. These are skills that can be learned. They are largely blue-collar skills and there will be a tendency for some of the new technologies to displace blue-collar workers. There is an opportunity for identifying opportunities in microgeneration and retrofitting, as well as in the bioeconomy and so on, that have a skill mix that can be very positive for those who need to redeploy into new areas. This is central to the plan. The education and training boards, ETBs, the institutes of technology and the bodies that are transitioning to technological universities will have to step up to the plate in this area. As an aside, we need those agencies to take on more mature people rather than gearing up their systems for only younger people coming out the schools.

The Senator is right that some retrofitting can be very expensive and some can be very cheap. The Senator is right also in advising that we start with the shallow retrofit. In adopting an area-based approach, we can do that on a scale and make it easier for people to take on.

If all they want to do is the shallower retrofit, that can be possible, but, of course, we will need to see people moving to carrying out deeper retrofits over time. The figures are on the SEAI website if the Senator is interested in seeing them. It is less than €2,000 for a cavity wall for a very strong improvement in the fabric. The figure for an external wall is €14,000. It is much more expensive to achieve the same thing. Clearly, there is a rationale for us to start with cavity walls and move to deeper interventions as a system evolves. The Senator is right to suggest we do the sensible things first that will yield a result. We should not seek to scare people off by bigging up the most expensive possible retrofit to a very large house in a very isolated area with very bad heating systems and so on. For a lot of people, the changes will be more modest and affordable with a quicker payback. However, over time we will need to accommodate the deeper changes such as moving to heat pumps, heat controls and deeper retrofits. Once we start this journey with a credible model which we need to design, we can ramp it up.