Irish Retrofit Market €14bn, Faces Critical Construction Skills Shortage
23 Sep. 2011
Saint-Gobain, Ireland announced investment in training to jump start construction sector workers to benefit from up-skilling to meet demands for Retrofitting.
On Friday 23rd Sept 2011 Saint-Gobain Construction Products, Ireland (Gyproc, Isover and Weber) announced a significant investment to up-skill and train 1,000 construction professionals for free, to meet the increased consumer demand for renovations and construction in the retrofit market. Saint-Gobain, who sponsored the conference ‘Bringing Retrofit to Market’, will provide free training courses for 1,000 construction workers over the next 12 months in their Technical Academy in Kingscourt, Co. Cavan.
Speaking at the Bringing Retrofit to Market conference which took place in Croke Park, Brian Dolan Managing Director of Gyproc and Isover, Ireland commented “The retrofit market is potentially a €14billion industry for Ireland but one of the challenges is a major shortage of the specialist skills required to implement the type of work that must be carried out to make Retrofit work effectively. We in Saint-Gobain are pledging to invest in free training for the construction industry at our technical academy. This free training will be rolled out over the next 12 months to develop skills in areas such as internal insulation, airtightness, moisture control and acoustics. This is our pledge to help kick start the retrofit industry.”
The announcement was well received by the delegates who attended the high level conference, as it represents a huge vote of confidence in the long-term prospects of the construction sector in Ireland. The training courses on offer will be both practical and technical, depending on the requirements of the attendees. Saint-Gobain have also invested a significant amount of time and effort in training the trainers, so that they will be well equipped to impart knowledge on many of the Saint-Gobain products and systems which include some of the leading brands in the sector including Gyproc, Isover and Weber.
