Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is correct. I accept that much of the built environment is not up to the standard that it might be if we were developing it now. That is true. My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, was allocated €50 million in the past few weeks to address the precise issue identified by the Deputy, which relates to local authority housing. That should see a fairly quick result. In that case, the relevant local authority can get on with the work straightaway. The arrangement is between the authority and the Custom House. As the Deputy suggested, a couple of pilot schemes - one in south Dublin and one in Longford - are in place and it will be interesting to see what they throw up. We are moving towards an area based approach, whereby a cluster of houses in a certain area is refurbished with a view to seeing whether savings can be made and value for money achieved. When one examines the issue of fuel poverty and affordability, one comes back to persuading people that the best contribution we can make is to make our domestic dwellings more efficient, given that we have to import our energy resources. Separately, we have put in place the energy efficiency fund to concentrate on public and commercial buildings in which there is immense waste. I refer to schools and hospitals, for example.

If one looks at hospitals, experts will say there is an immense waste of energy. The Government put €35 million of seed capital into the €70 million fund. We expect that this will at least be matched by the private sector. A model has been worked out in considerable detail that will be put into the public domain shortly. We have already announced Exemplar projects that will be eligible in that regard. We have to address the reason for the decline in applications. I know consumer spending is flat and that is a significant factor. However, we have to do more to persuade householders of the value of this approach.

Subhead C5 is essentially research. With this we are trying to keep alive our hopes of progress in the renewables areas outside of wind such as in wave and tidal energy generation. Even in these straitened circumstances, we are trying to keep programmes that are under way going. Deputy Harrington will be familiar with the developments at Ringaskiddy, County Cork, where we have managed to ensure the Beaufort building is completed. Some of the work going on there is internationally regarded as leading cutting edge. We are also providing additional funding for the prototype development fund. There is a prototype test site off Belmullet in north Mayo. The effort in this regard is to maintain our interest in the research area.

That is not unconnected with the question raised by Deputy Colreavy about the international organisations to which we subscribe a modest amount of money, I think. It is important that we stay abreast of developments in innovation, research and development in global energy. An organisation such as the International Energy Agency is important to us. It carried out an assessment of Irish energy performance last year and published an interesting report on global energy trends. The Department’s assistant secretary is on the agency's board in Paris. The fee is €112,000 per annum but the contacts and networks made available are good value.

The separate heading for gas is exactly for the reason raised by the Deputy - that safety is paramount. There is no reason to stress that standards in the gas network just simply have to be maintained. Any cowboy activity in that sector could have serious consequences. It is a modest enough provision in subhead C7.