Dr. Larry O'Connell:

On the framing, Dr. Moore mentioned earlier that we looked, as a case study, at Bord na Móna. One of the issues in Bord na Móna, at that stage, was that it had largely become an industrial relations issue. It was about trying to sort out job losses and so on. I will not comment on that process but, in general, if it is going to be a just transition, engagement has to be earlier. It has to be a proactive dialogue and the framing is about good, decent jobs and how to create those in a specific region.

On the engagement with workers, what we need to do in a just transition is look at early identification of the precise skills workers have in a particular sector or area, what opportunities they see which they might like to pursue, how they can be supported to do so, how we can create enterprises that are more viable in those areas or regions that are impacted and how we ensure finance is brought to bear to support that. The NESC work in this area for the past year was about trying to create social dialogue and to look at what processes would be needed but our key lesson was that it needs to be an early engagement and that will allow workers and enterprise in the area to have a constructive discussion and we can all agree that the objective is to create decent jobs that will secure people's future in the midlands. That is our framing and our thought about it. Going back to the points that Dr. Moore made, the question is how we create the institutions that are able to do that. Our work in the Midlands suggests that, while there are some interesting institutions already in place, we can do more to enable information to flow from local county development companies into regional structures and nationally where blockages can be unlocked. That is what we need to see to support dialogue at local level. I am not sure if that fully answered the Senator's question but we will be happy to come back to her on it.