Mr. Aidan Dunning:

To give some background as to how the energy efficiency fund came about, the Deputy may recall that we had in place a carbon windfall levy, the proceeds of which were used to subsidise electricity prices for commercial users primarily. That was struck down by the courts last year but there was a residual amount left in the fund of about €44 million. Some €35 million of that has been earmarked for an energy efficiency fund and from that €35 million we intend to leverage from the private sector at least an additional €35 million, if not more, through the establishment of appropriate funding mechanisms. We are working with NewERA in that regard because it is quite a complex matter.

We also see it operating very much in the area of the commercial sector. We have very strong targets, for instance, regarding the public sector in terms of energy efficiency under our energy efficiency action plan. Effectively, we have to reduce energy bills by 33% in the public sector.

Consequently, the initial work in this regard is to identify exemplar projects in both the public and private sectors, which we will be doing in co-ordination with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. We will be putting a call out for exemplar projects. They will then be able to tender, if one puts it that way, or seek funding from the energy efficiency fund. The idea behind the fund is that it will finance those works and we will get a return thereon, in that there will be a charge or a loan, so to speak, as operates with the green fund in the United Kingdom, whereby those who access the fund will pay some cost of funding. At this point, we have not completed the funding mechanism and are working with NewERA on that.