Mr. Seamus Hoyne:

On the heat pump training, a number of education and training boards, ETBs, and a number of higher education institutions are also developing heat pump training courses. The vision is that we would be able to provide - if I can use the generic terms - the core training on the heat pump, the physics, the overall technology and the typical performance parameters that heat pumps work with, both for new build and retrofit, through the sector. The manufacturers can just top this up with specific knowledge for their relevant heat pump technologies. This is being worked on at the moment. Currently, the manufacturers are also constrained with demand to provide training and sometimes they are having to find basic training on building physics for potential installers. That could be taken care of centrally through our education system.

Absolutely, the apprenticeship system is evolving all of the time. We now have the Apprenticeship Council and new mechanisms to create new apprenticeships. We are going to see new types of apprentices and apprenticeship models in the coming years as the climate agenda becomes centre forward. For those who are interested in getting into the sector, they can look at the traditional apprenticeships, and the industry and others are also looking at new apprenticeship models where a person can be working and earning at the same time.

The Deputy asked about the assessor's report. If the building is an unusual typology or has particular differences that do not fit into the majority of the boxes that a dwelling energy assessment procedure tool provides, then it causes challenges for the assessor to provide a report that is non-standard. We have all been in those buildings where a home probably has a 1940s component, a 1950s component, a 1970s component and an add-on that was done in the 2000s. There can be four different building types in one location. It becomes somewhat complex. It is absolutely the case that we can deal relatively easily with the standard homes such as the semi-detached or detached buildings. Certainly, the approach in Electric Ireland Superhomes is that where a building is bespoke, we must nuance and manage the assessor's report in a particular way to reflect that particular building's requirements. That is an evolving process. The advice for those people who are unhappy would be to go back to their one-stop shop and engage with them further.

The digital academy for sustainable built environment, DASBE, came about from ten years of research and activity around education, training and sustainable building. The overall ultimate vision is that we must speed up how we educate and train the people working. We cannot wait for the traditional process to deliver the education and training that we need. This is because of the urgency around retrofitting and new build, dealing with traditional buildings, renewable energy development, and the digitisation agenda. This is viewed as a partnership between the Technological University of the Shannon, TUS; what was GMIT and is now Atlantic Technological University, ATU; the Tipperary Energy Agency and the Irish Green Building Council. Ultimately, we are trying to develop programmes faster. For example, the industry sector came to us for our new higher diploma in residential retrofit management. The one-stop shops we engage with have said to us that they need to upskill their engineers to be able to manage the scale of retrofits that we are going to be doing. We worked collectively with the industry to develop and validate the programme in a seven-month period, which in academia is relatively fast, while still meeting our quality assurance requirements. We will be launching that programme in September. In the example I referred to earlier, and which was mentioned, we took an existing continuing professional development programme that was developed with the Heritage Council.

We have attached academic credits to that. We have added additionality so we now have our certificate in energy renovation of traditional buildings and lots more. DASBE is trying to provide the programmes in a flexible way so people can access education, upskill themselves and work in the sector, and so people who do not have the skills acquire them and get employment in the sector. By using the digital academy, meaning online learning or in some cases blended learning where the majority is on line but we bring them in for workshops, practical demonstrations and site visits, we can access more people within Ireland and internationally to upskill and come to work in the sector. It is an industry-academia collaboration funded through the Higher Education Authority, HEA's human capital initiative and our job is to disrupt education and training activity so we can deliver efficient, effective, high-quality programmes in a new way.