Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Lowry asked about the Littleton plant. It is a sad day when one sees any operation in the country closing. It was inevitable and will be inevitable that as we transition away from fossil fuels, we will have more announcements of this kind in the future. The objective is to try to ensure, in so far as is possible, that we are transitioning out of one technology and into employment in another area. It has been very traumatic for the staff involved in Littleton. There are 124 people impacted by it. About 80 people will exit the company on 28 March and there will be ten retained in the peat business unit.

Over a period of six months to three years, 34 redundancies will take place due to the decommissioning of the site. In terms of the security of the site, 44 staff will still be there and they will transition out over time. While there were protracted discussions on redundancy, 90% support from the staff was secured for the redundancy package which was ultimately offered. It is important now to explore the opportunities for the site and source alternative employment for it. I discussed this with the outgoing chief executive of Bord na Móna and we have discussed possible alternatives for the site. We have a new chief executive coming into Bord na Móna now and I will ask him to look at this. It is a very valuable site given its strategic location and infrastructure and we must find out what opportunities exist there for alternative uses and employment.

Deputy Stanley asked me about school buildings. We have been involved in a pilot project with the Department of Education and Skills. There was an initiative between the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and the Department of Education and Skills and €2 million was allocated for a renovation pilot scheme for medium to deep retrofit upgrades of ten primary and secondary schools. The purpose of the pilot scheme was to help to develop a scalable model for energy efficiency retrofits to schools across Ireland. On foot of the learnings from that, we are going to try to develop it further. We had a number of other pilots, one of which involved energy upgrades of central government buildings with the OPW. This year, we have set aside €9 million to invest in further support for public sector energy efficiency strategies. We are at about 20% across the public sector in relation to energy efficiency and must reach a target of 33% by 2020.