Mr. Jim Gannon:

What is important with regard to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland in the context of the national mitigation plan is that it does not encompass all of our activities. We also perform an analysis and design support role to the Department with regard to policies and, separately, SEAI is the statutory body mandated to prepare Ireland's energy statistics and energy projections.

In terms of SEAI's vision, simply put, we would like Irish society to use less electricity and energy generally, to use cleaner energy and also to innovate. Increasingly, we are seeing a convergence of these three activities, particularly around the human in the home, the car and in small businesses.

In terms of the national mitigation plan specifically, we set a tracker for all of the national mitigation plan activities, including those specifically tasked to SEAI as the primary correspondent and those where we could provide support. We examined all of the timelines and, separately, sought activities where we could support other agencies and catalyse an increased or accelerated pathway for their own activities. We see this is a minimum bar for performance as opposed to a limit of our ambition.

In terms of the specific activities allocated to us, they are all on track, bar one. The only deviation from that one is that we determined with external expertise and with the Department that a lower than anticipated sample size was required for the warmth and wellbeing scheme. I will outline some of the highlights. With regard to the warmth and wellbeing pilot scheme, which looks at the co-benefits of energy efficiency, we are working with the HSE, the Department of Health and our line Department to determine what health benefits there may be from energy efficiency upgrades. With regard to the excellence in energy efficiency design, EXEED, programme, a building was launched last week by the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, which moved from a C1 energy rating to an A2 energy rating, resulting in 60% to 65% savings. With regard to the behavioural economics unit, its first report will be published in May. These analyses over 100 different interventions worldwide in sustainable energy with empirical results and will provide recommendations to a variety of Departments and other bodies in Ireland on how we could engage behavioural economics in the design of our policy. We have also started engaging more with the OPW, the Department of Education and Skills, and public sector bodies to show that leadership role.

The key messages with regard to the national mitigation plan activities is that they are all achieved or on track and, separately, we see it as a minimum bar of performance as opposed to a target. I am sure that throughout our discussion I will elaborate further on some of the activities we have done in addition to this minimum bar that will touch on a lot of the points raised at the Citizens' Assembly, for example, and in respect of other activities on which we work with other Departments.