Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

To give details on the skills issue, in last year's budget, the Government provided €22 million for the green skills action programme with a particular focus on near-zero energy building and retrofitting, with a significant increase in course places. The Minister, Deputy Harris, actually came up to me after we launched the national retrofit scheme to say that not only did we have a massive response from householders who were interested but that the telephone was ringing off the hook in those centres. Some 5,000 apprenticeship places are there now.

The very attractive thing about it is that it does not have to be a prolonged process. Much of the skills training in this can be done in a relatively short period. People with existing skills can upgrade or new people going into the industry can benefit. We are seeing a real uptick in interest. The change in the CAO process that the Minister, Deputy Harris, also announced in November, which puts those apprenticeship options before young people, will also be transformative. I am confident that in the next three years we will get the 17,000 places the Minister set as a target and we will have the workers to deliver the retrofits we need.

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