Mr. Oliver Gilvarry:

Leaving certificate reform has not come up with the council. The focus and challenge this year has been on pathways to work and apprenticeships but it is a good point. We need to foster the skills, start at that stage and feed that through. Reforms have been led by colleagues in the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to look at the CAO system but from what we have seen from the pandemic the leaving certificate will be reformed and restructured going forward so that we will have the appropriate skills coming through into our labour force from colleges, institutes of technology or apprenticeships. The starting point will be that people come out from the leaving certificate system and that they have the basic skills or qualifications coming through. However, we have not looked at contributing to the reform of the leaving certificate.

On the climate side of the circular economy, a productivity research programme has been called for and that is in the process of being established by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. That will have a significant climate component because as the Deputy rightly said, the climate agenda is not going away and it will be coming more and more to the fore. We are seeing proposals at an EU level on the circular economy such as directives on the repairability of appliances and the like. From the council's perspective it would be important for the Government to consider the export of climate technology. It must also consider how our businesses are established, how they can take advantage and how our support schemes that are being put forward can deliver on that project. In that way we will see people and businesses putting solutions in place that can be utilised elsewhere.

With regard to the point on the climate side, there will be a research programme and that will be a big part of it. As I said, this relates to how the climate agenda is affecting the productivity and competitiveness of firms, and looking at advantages that might be gained. A number of other projects will also be in the climate area.