Dr. Ciaran Byrne:

I will take the other two points in regard to linking with the ETB sector and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. We have an active context with the ETB sector. Five of them are prioritised, they are specialists in the green economy, the nearly zero emissions building, NZEB, and retrofit area. The Deputy mentioned the Laois and Offaly ETB. We have actively engaged with Laois and Offaly ETB in our training centre in Mount Lucas. We have linked in some of our contractors with the ETBs because they are bringing the students and the people coming to upskill or reskill and we are linking those in with our contractors on the actual programmes. I have engaged directly also with Limerick and Clare ETB recently in regard to its centre, understanding its needs and making sure it is aware of our programmes and scales of ambition and I am aware of what it is doing in order that we can join the two together. Once we get through the registration process with the one-stop shops, one of our key deliverables will be effectively to have networking sessions between the ETBs and the one-stop shops in order to join them together. We have done that already in the warmer homes scheme.

On the LEAF,as the Deputy called it, in respect of sustainable energy communities, that is the local energy activation fund and we are currently working on that. That is another policy area. Ultimately it will be decided by the Government and the Minister. It is a small-scale grant. The whole thesis there is really the catalyst-type grant for sustainable communities. We did a significant piece of work on it which we hope to complete very soon. It is about getting those smaller grants to communities to allow them effectively catalyse people moving into the one-stop shops and other energy schemes as well.