Dr. Ciaran Byrne:

I thank the Chair for his question. Labour supply is a common theme that has come from our contractors.

By way of context, our better energy homes scheme provides individual grants and we have more than 1,300 registered contractors. Due to the publication of retrofit schemes, and the clear policy direction and funding put in place by the Government an increasing number of contractors have come back to the scheme. Thus far to date this year an additional 328 contractors have joined the scheme relative to last year where we had 127. Also, in our one-stop shops, we have 12 registered and another ten in the pipeline. Other larger construction-type entities are looking into one-stop shops.

One of the areas that we will look to work on is apprenticeships. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has put in additional funding for apprenticeships and we will consider ways to customise apprenticeships slightly more. For example, to qualify as a plumber one must undertake a four-year apprenticeship where one studies the full spectrum of plumbing works. There is a lot of traction around the idea of having an apprenticeship specifically for a renewable installer. To be a heat-pump installer one needs some of the plumbing things but not all of them. We need to consider whether we can compact the apprenticeship into that space a bit more and we are starting to look into that and seeing that as an option.

In regard to going abroad, we have had discussions with our colleagues in the Construction Industry Federation who have experienced the same thing and CIF has deep experience of going to other countries.

They also have deep experience of going to other countries. Traditionally, we would have gone to eastern Europe but that is no longer available to us. A lot of people left during Covid and did not come back, and a lot of the countries that we would have gone to are doing similar programmes. We are talking about going further afield, if not quite into the Middle East, then further into eastern Europe, for example, Uzbekistan, Turkey and other places outside the EU. Some of the interesting constraints are, first, visas to get people here and, second, accommodation when they do come here. We are engaging with the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, because it has practical experience.