Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----and I will ask them together.

I imagine this comes up often but I am concerned at the skills deficit and the fact there is obviously contract within construction and all that kind of stuff. There is a pipeline delay with apprenticeships, especially for electricians and probably plumbers and heating engineers as well. Is that an ongoing conversation with the Department of enterprise? Has Mr. Deegan's Department ways of flagging that?

The other point is, I am not totally clear on how the crossover with the Department of housing and local government works. Much of our poorer stock is composed of older, local authority houses. Some of the challenge of that is much of the low-hanginig fruit has been addressed. In my city, an awful lot of the local authority flats have been done. That is more efficient and easier to do because they are primarily owned exclusively owned by the local authority. Meanwhile,there are estates like Crumlin and Kimmage in Dublin and Ballyphehane and Garranabraher in Cork. They were built in the sixties and half or two thirds of the stock has been bought privately but we still have a substantial amount of local authority stock. However, it is spread out. There might be three, five, 12 or however many houses per street. That seems to be a challenge. A great deal of that stock is of poor quality and needs a deep retrofit. They are block construction of the type where insulation cannot be pumped into the cavity or anything like that. What is the level of Mr. Deegan's Department's responsibility? How does the relationship with the Department of housing discuss and address that? A lot of energy-inefficient buildings are those kinds of local authority housing.