Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. The Deputy has raised matters I did not have a chance to cover, but they are exactly what the construction technology centre will deal with. The overall aim of the centre is to identify the optimal consortium of research-performing organisations in the Irish ecosystem that will deliver productivity and sustainability for the Irish construction and built-environment sector through research, development and innovation, with a focus on skills and everything else the Deputy touched on.

The Deputy asked about the timeline for the proposal. Thankfully, the money has been set aside through Enterprise Ireland. A €5 million budget is set aside to drive this over the next couple of years. The call for proposals opened in February and closed on 4 March. It was open to all in the research community to lead on this and collaborate. On 7 March, eligibility checks and clarifications got under way. The evaluation was scheduled for March. By 25 March, it was hoped there would be presentations by the various consortia to the evaluation planning teams. The selection of the winning consortium was scheduled for early April. This could be slightly behind, but that was the plan. The preparation of documents for presentation to the Enterprise Ireland committees is scheduled for May and the proposal is to be approved sometime in June by the board of Enterprise Ireland. That means the centre should be well up and running by the end of the year.

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