Mr. Seán Armstrong:

The first question was about how the NZEB regulations are policed both for public buildings and housing. As regards the public building requirement under the energy performance of buildings directive, a circular was issued to Departments in December 2016 advising them of the NZEB requirement and advising that all buildings commencing design in January 2017 should be to NZEB performance. Soon after that we went to public consultation on our NZEB requirement for all non-residential buildings. The NZEB requirement for all non-residential buildings applied to buildings commencing construction from 1 January 2019. While the public sector would have been responsible for designing buildings to NZEB that commenced design from January 2017, from 1 January 2019 all buildings that commenced construction were required to be NZEB. The building regulations overtook the circular that had been issued to public sector bodies.

From 1 January 2019, all non-residential buildings, that is buildings other than dwellings, commencing construction are required to be near zero energy buildings, NZEB. That is enforced by building control regulations.