Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response. I very much welcome some of the new information he provided on his intention to meet with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which will be very helpful, and also that the county team will come to Ireland in November. It is crucial that the local midlands regional transition team would be an important part of the discussions with that county team.

I commend Offaly County Council, which has been proactive in the response to recent events and which has established a regional transition team, bringing together all the stakeholders in Offaly County Council - the elected representatives, the local enterprise office, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Bord na Móna, AIT and Offaly Local Development Company. That is a very good example of how everybody pulling together can be proactive in responding to it. The council is coming up with ideas and I sincerely hope there will be support for one of its aims, which is to explore ways the regional transition team can work with Bord na Móna to assess the viability of upskilling the Bord na Móna workers to carry out the work required under a deep retrofit scheme. Would the Minister consider Offaly for a pilot scheme to establish how we would get the deep retrofitting done? That would be important.

I acknowledge that the Minister turned the sod recently on an exciting project initiated by Lumcloon Energy. It is a battery storage project and is the next phase in the energy field in Offaly. I thank him for attending on that occasion.

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