Mr. Dermot Byrne:

The scaling up and the retrofit wave is one of our biggest challenges.

We are conscious of that and we are gearing up for it. We have already started the work. We work closely with the Department on mapping out the targets etc. We have a target of achieving 500,000 B2 ratings by the end of the decade. When one looks at the graph showing that target mapped out over ten years, there is a mountain to climb. We are conscious of that.

We are putting in place the elements for SEAI being the national retrofit delivery body. We have that up and running now as a project. We have already started the work for 2021. We have an increased budget. We have two calls out at the moment, one of which is a one-stop-shop call. The Deputy will know that one of the key issues is the development of a supply chain to deliver this. That will take some time. The one-stop-shop call is helping the contractor base and the supply chain to coagulate and come together to create the necessary one-stop-shops that will help us to deliver this. We also have a community call-out, which is focusing on communities. They are the first two elements that are off the block. We are hindered a little by the pandemic, as we were last year, but all going well, once the restrictions are lifted, we hope to be up and running and doing the work for 2021, which is a target of 8,000 but, more important, preparing for the rapid scale-up for 2022 and thereafter. We have a task force and a project up and running to deliver that.

On the public sector, under the climate action plan the target for the public sector was 33% efficiency by 2020. It got close to achieving that target. There are exemplars such as, for example, Dublin City University, An Post and Dublin County Council. There are good examples of strong leadership in the public sector. We are working across the public sector to deliver the know-how and technologies that will help. The targets in the upcoming review of the climate action plan will be more stringent and will require leadership and best practice across all elements of the public sector.

On the remit of SEAI, having chaired the expert group on energy research and development in 2017, what was evident at the time was the lack of co-ordination. That was one of the main findings of that group. When I stepped into the chairmanship of SEAI late last year, I was glad to note that it had taken over the role of co-ordinating the research and development activity across the country. It does that in a number of ways through funding research and development. We have over 100 projects up and running by various research performing organisations, RPOs. The national conference we held last October pulled together all of those research organisations to allow researchers to hear what other people are doing. That type of information exchange is a great way of growing the collaborative effort across all RPOs. We have additional funding of up to €16 million for 2021. That will make a difference and is necessary to carry out that work in an effective and efficient way. I see that being very much of SEAI's remit.