Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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509. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of retrofitting centres of excellence that have been established to date; the location of each; the number of trainees currently enrolled in each; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54546/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The WWETB National NZEB Training Centre is the first facility in Europe to offer a suite of trade-specific NZEB courses. On-site retrofit programmes are currently provided in Waterford Wexford ETB, Laois Offaly ETB and Mount Lucas National Construction Training Centre. These training courses introduce participants to the legislative concepts required to meet the standards of NZEB in a flexible, responsive environment.

Currently, there are 648 students enrolled on NZEB and retrofitting programmes across the three centres. The majority of courses are three days in duration and are validated by City and Guilds. WWETB is continuing to develop their offering to meet the needs of the sector and are developing a blended model with 2 days online and one day in the training centre. They have also commissioned the development of a pilot VR programme to support NZEB/retrofit training which is expected to be operational by year end.

A further three Centres of Excellence are being established in the Cork, Limerick Clare and Mayo Sligo Leitrim ETBs. The establishment of the centres has been delayed due to COVID-19 impacts on the ETBs and are now due to be in place by early-2022.