Mr. Seamus Hoyne:

I will try to capture them all and my colleagues will probably be able to contribute on some of the education questions. The critical piece in terms of education is reframing the discussion around careers in the construction sector in the context of the environmental and climate emergency. I welcome the work on leaving certificate reform. The CAO, apprenticeships and higher and further education being more closely linked and the agenda from the Department for further and higher education are welcomed from our perspective. When a leaving certificate student is looking at careers, does he or she see a career in retrofit management or where he or she is addressing the climate agenda? We need further engagement with guidance counsellors and educators in schools so they understand the types of careers available and the changing careers, and that by going down the apprenticeship, engineering or other routes, people can work in the climate and retrofit sectors. We have talked about technical training, programmes and careers. It is important to note, given what one-stop shops are doing at the moment, that they need sales managers, finance expertise and quality assurance people. There are jobs for many types of careers in the retrofit and construction sectors. We need to frame those and show examples of those type of careers.

In terms of demand, we see through the CAO numbers increased interest this year in environmental programmes broadly, whether that is environmental science, renewable energy etc. The figures nationally look like there is growth in those areas. We will see when the final numbers come out at the end of June.

On the question about working with schools, that data work is ongoing.

The ambition is to have the assessment of the 500 or so schools completed by September. That work is feeding into the Department of Education, which, in line with one of the actions in the climate action plan, is putting together an investment plan for retrofitting and decarbonising schools. This is an important task and the Department has secured funding from the European Investment Bank, EIB, to complete it. It will use then that work to leverage additional investment. As such, addressing schools in this regard is high on the Department's agenda. This work links in with the broader educational activity within green schools.

Regarding housing density and the broader strategic decisions being made at local authority level, for example, through county development plans, TUS has worked with the climate action regional offices for the past year and a half on delivering a climate awareness training programme to all senior managers and councillors in every local authority. That half-day training programme was specifically on climate mitigation and climate adaptation. It looked at the science and driving policies and involved workshops where councillors and senior managers worked together to see what was happening in their respective counties and regions and what priorities they needed to address.

As part of that, we gathered data, which we fed back, on county development plans. A strong move to address settlement patterns is evident. This is being driven by multiple different agendas, with the climate and energy agenda one of those. Many local authorities are reviewing their county development plans at the moment and are taking an active role in addressing the environment and the climate agenda. Housing provision is a multifaceted and complex matter and they have to balance competing actions. From our engagement with local authorities through training programmes, though, they are aware of this issue and having good discussions about the balance that is appropriate in housing settlement plans.

I recommend that committee members examine the outcomes of the heat study completed by the SEAI. It makes strong recommendations on how district heating could be deployed, not just in our cities, but in towns across the country with a view to cost-benefit investment opportunities. Such district heating can be installed in existing developments as well as new ones.

The housing agenda has a large number of moving parts. Critically, for retrofitting current housing, such buildings are typically off the gas grid and dependent on oil, solid fuel or liquid petroleum gas heating systems. They are the priority houses that we can access in terms of decarbonising and retrofitting. It becomes a different proposition in areas that are on the gas grid and where we have to consider competing fuel costs, etc.

I hope that my comments have been useful.