Elaine Loughlin: Retrofit plan will go up in smoke if we can’t find people to do the work
Retrofitting 500,000 homes to transform them into warmer, energy-efficient properties that are cheaper to run makes sense, but where are we going to find the workers to carry out the job?
The Cabinet is this morning expected to sign off on a highly improved scheme that will provide households with around 50% of the price of a deep retrofit and in turn bring down the cost of running their homes.
The upgrades will also have a positive impact on our environment, bringing down the amount of carbon we currently produce on heating, only to have the warmth seep out of walls and windows and up through attics.
However, to meet the 2030 target being set by Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, we would need to retrofit an average of 50,000 homes each year.
If the scheme is to be a success, it will require the training and upskilling of thousands of workers each year and will come on top of a growing labour demand as the construction of new homes also ramps up.
According to the quantity surveyor Patricia Power, we are back to Celtic Tiger levels of demand in the construction sector. So the fear is that homeowners may be able to get grants to do up their homes, but won’t be able to spend it.
“We need to be retrofitting 40,000 to 50,000 homes a year and we need to be building likewise new homes of that equivalent, so where’s all the labour going to come from?” Ms Power asks.
She says that, because of a “complete lack of people in trades”, there is often a waiting list of two to three months to get builders on site and, even with her contacts, she says “there is nothing that can be done the next day any more”.
“The amount of sites that I have at the moment where people are saying ‘I can’t get a tiler, I can’t get a painter’ — we’re booking everybody and are waiting three to four weeks to book somebody. It’s back to Celtic Tiger times when you look at the labour and the shortage of labour that’s there.”
The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) has forecast the need for at least 53,000 extra employees in the built environment by 2030, this will include 40,000 construction workers for new developments and 13,000 for residential retrofits.
While a number of the 62 apprenticeship courses currently on offer have some skills crossover with retrofitting such as plumbing, carpentry and joinery, and plastering and painting, there is currently no dedicated retrofitting apprenticeship for new entrants.
“Retrofit activity covers a range of tasks and professions including craft trades and operative level occupations in the construction sector,” Higher Education Minister Simon Harris said in response to a parliamentary question before Christmas.
“Should there be a need for a retrofit-specific apprenticeship to complement the existing range of offerings, the development of new apprenticeships is employer-led, with consortia comprising employer groups and educational providers can come together to identify a skills need and appropriate apprenticeship response in their sector under a defined process.”
The retrofitting scheme will come into direct competition for labour with new build construction, whether that be apartment blocks, housing estates, high-rise offices, or commercial buildings.
Tom Parlon, the head of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) says hiring enough workers to meet the demand for new projects is already an issue.
“We have a challenge to get enough workers because we need to hire 1,000 workers each week if we are to work our way up to building the 35,000 houses that we need,” he said.
“I’d say we will be at maybe 27,000 or 28,000 houses this year, so we’re going in the right direction. But we’ll be hiring extra people to do that.”
Mr Parlon also points to the significant number of projects under construction that will cater for the increased number of multinational companies either choosing to locate here or expanding existing operations.
“We have one site at the moment, with a big FDI company out in Leixlip — there are 6,500 construction workers working on one site.
“There are several big commercial foreign direct investment sites around the country that have around 2,000 workers on them.
“They pay very well, they have very good working conditions, so people are not going to necessarily leave those jobs to go working on retrofitting houses and do one here and do one there and so on.
“That’s going to be the problem. So the Government needs to come up with a plan,” Mr Parlon says.
Last year, local authorities were given the rather modest target of upgrading 2,400 homes under the energy efficiency retrofit programme (EERP) and the Midlands retrofit programme.
However, just 1,500 properties were retrofitted, with the remaining 900 now due to be completed by the middle of this year.
The latest Housing For All progress report blamed the “significant delays” on the pandemic, citing a “reduced capacity in the construction sector and related Covid-19 protocols for surveyors and contractors, given the homes retrofitted under these programmes are occupied”.
Brexit was also raised as a cause of long delays in the supply of heat pumps, windows, doors, and insulation.
Separately, the better energy warmer homes scheme delivers a range of energy efficiency measures free of charge to low income households vulnerable to energy poverty.
However, it is now taking 26 months to get upgrades carried out under this scheme and there are over 7,0000 homes awaiting work. The intention is to scale up the level of retrofitting carried out each year, but getting to at least 50,000 homes annually seems beyond ambitious when the current level of delivery is examined.
Unless Eamon Ryan has a secret stash of workers ready to roll out along with his retrofitting scheme, his ambitious targets to make homes warmer could go up in smoke.
The Oireachtas Library, which is housed in a grand room to the left of the main entrance hall of Leinster House, holds a collection of books and documents ranging from the 16th century right up to the present day.
Included in the collection is a copy of Edward H Nolan’s , which was published in the 1850s.
The Crimean war was the first to feature the new technology of photography, most notably the work of British photographer Roger Fenton and his photographs were used for illustrations in Nolan’s book.
- Cabinet meets in the morning to sign off on the expanded retrofitting scheme that will pay around half the cost of bringing homes from an E energy rating right up to a B rating. It is expected that Green Party leader Eamon Ryan will announce the full details of the new supports after the meeting of ministers.
- The foreign affairs committee will hear from Simon Coveney on the report into champagne-gate. Given that we now know exactly what was consumed during the celebration in Iveagh House, perhaps it should be renamed sparking wine-gate.
- The Dáil week kicks off with the usual leaders’ questions at 2pm. Sinn Féin is bringing forward a motion demanding a commission of investigation into the Women of Honour’s allegations. It comes after the majority of other opposition parties and independent last week wrote to the Taoiseach calling for the same.
- Higher Education Minister Simon Harris will take questions in the Dáil in the evening.
- The cost of living has been high on the agenda since the Dáil returned after Christmas. A bill which would provide households with a once-off €100 payment towards electricity bills is due to be debated on Wednesday afternoon before it goes to the Seanad. The weekly votes will be taken in the evening.
- People Before Profit also has a motion calling for an increase in the minimum wage to help address inflation.
- With the Government under pressure to address rising costs, there will be much focus on the meeting of the Cabinet committee on economic recovery and investment, which is due to discuss further reliefs.
- A bill brought forward by Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to amend the Constitution to allow TDs to vote remotely is up for discussion in the Dáil.
- A cross-party motion to establish safe access zones outside hospitals and other healthcare facilities providing abortion services is at committee stage in the Seanad.
- The Public Accounts Committee will hear from National Broadband Ireland.
Just a few weeks after the Dáil voted in favour of the Treaty, the chairman of the new provisional government Michael Collins gave an interview to the press in which he said: “It is interesting to note that Mr de Valera’s attack has changed from an attack upon the British to an attack upon my colleagues and myself. We had to stand up against the British in all our negotiations, but he and his followers are making common cause against us. That is the plain truth of the matter and no amount of metaphysics will alter the position.”
A nationwide hunt began following the kidnapping of prize stallion Shergar. However, a front-page story the reported that “cross-channel media people who jetted in to join local journalists” working on the story “found themselves scraping the barrel for facts”. This was because the gardaí were also “wrestling with a baffling mystery with really little to go on”. It’s a puzzle that remains unlikely to be ever solved.
What was described as “almost certainly the biggest Cabinet butchering operation ever”, took place just hours after newly-elected taoiseach Albert Reynolds took over — sacking half of Charles Haughey’s appointed ministers. Eight serving ministers were dropped, including Mary O’Rourke, Ray Burke, and Rory O’Hanlon.
Michael Noonan was elected leader of Fine Gael after fighting off rival Enda Kenny. The following day, the leader of the Progressive Democrats, Mary Harney, was facing the chop, but she managed to stave off the challenge from within her own party.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB