Saint-Gobain Construction Products is going to provide free training courses to upskill 1,000 construction workers over the next 12 months, involving an investment of €250,000.
Speaking at the ‘Bringing Retrofit to Market’ conference in Croke Park today, Brian Dolan, managing director of Saint-Gobain Construction Products, said the retrofit market was potentially a €14bn 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,” he said.
The free training will be rolled out over the next 12 months at Saint-Gobain’s technical academy in Kingscourt in Co Cavan 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,” said Dolan.
Multi Comfort Concept Home
With operations in 64 countries and nearly 190,000 employees, Saint-Gobain also unveiled details of a Multi Comfort Concept Home of the future in Beaucouze at today’s conference organised by the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA).
This house is accessible now in Paris and there are plans to build similar homes by Saint-Gobain in Ireland over the next two to three years.
