Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We have received much information today that will be very important. Part of that is because we are responding to a crisis. We are in the middle of a revolution akin to the industrial revolution and having to respond on a whole-of-society basis. I sit on the education committee as well as this one, so I am interested in much of the conversation.

A piece has been done around leaving certificate reform by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. The Minister for Education has added climate as one of the subjects in the leaving certificate, though that will take time to work its way through. There have been changes to the CAO whereby people can apply for apprenticeships directly through the same method. All of these things are very important. I would like to see more practical experience, particularly in the three last years of secondary school as people prepare. One of the difficulties previously was only 5% of girls, for instance, took up apprenticeships. That needs to shift. Do the witnesses have any suggestions concerning that important transition?

There are indications that some courses have greater demand than others. What can we, as a Government, do to respond?

I was interested in the data collection piece around schools. There are co-benefits when it comes to schools because young people may not have energy efficiency in their homes but there is a democratic nature to being in a school where they have the benefits and are living through something, which is more likely to mean they will go into that industry. Is there something we could do to expedite that data collection to fund that and get it working faster?

Mr. Hoyne mentioned Ireland's housing density and one-off housing. He is looking at how to respond to Ireland's uniqueness from the point of view of culture, heritage and housing density. Is there something he can teach us and our planning regulators about what changes need to be made to make retrofitting better and improve energy efficiency so we get up and running faster? What do we need to see in county development plans to enable us to do it faster and better? Do we need to look at whether continuing with one-off housing is the best thing, given that it is more difficult to service, even from a retrofitting point of view?