Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I might address the Chairman's last question first. He made a good point and I would like to see more investment and faster movement on the warm homes scheme in particular. Training is happening on the apprenticeship side in the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. I believe there are five ETBs specialising in retrofitting training. Some CE scheme participants have been doing courses in this area as part of their education and training. The RSS is different, in that it does not have a training element, but as committee members know, its participants are multiskilled, so it would not be a great leap for them to be involved in retrofitting. The difficulty lies in matching up contractors with participants. We will take the Chairman's idea with us. It is a sound one in principle, but I am unsure about how to do it in practice. CE participants are moving into this space and have been getting employment in it. The main constraint is not necessarily funding. As is the case with many measures at the moment, the main constraint is finding people with the skills to do the work. How we can marry the two together is worth exploring further.