Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The honest answer to that is that there is a lot of focus on it, but it is not the primary role of my Department. It is also under the Minister, Deputy Harris's, Department. However, for example, through our agencies, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, we can and do provide significant grant aid to their client base for upskilling and training. I have just come from the launch of a knowledge transfer boost programme, which will spend €32 million in the next few years, predominantly getting the skills we need into our universities to turn academic research into commercialisation in some of the new technologies we need to develop. There is also a dramatic increase in the number of apprentices coming out of our third level system. We are still not where we need to be, but there will be an additional 9,000 this year. The retrofitting programme challenge that is under way needs thousands of skilled workers to deliver its ambition. That is happening and my Department is part of the discussion. Skills are essential to everything in the economy and if we are going to decarbonise, we need the skills to do so.