Francis Noel Duffy (Dublin South West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Dr. Moloney on her new position. I thank her for her briefing, and Ms Teehan as well. The information we have been given so far has been great. I have a great passion for heritage, similar to that of Senator Boyhan and others on the committee. My background is in architecture and I have had the privilege of spending most of my career working with protected structures. My questions, then, come from an architectural background and concern the environment in that regard.

If we are serious about climate neutrality and sustainability, then we must transform and strengthen the policies and regulations around buildings throughout the procurement process. A cradle-to-cradle approach must be adopted, and that must begin with life-cycle carbon reporting at the application stage and the introduction of carbon limits, as used in other European jurisdictions, such as Denmark and the Netherlands. Critical to this undertaking is the introduction of life-cycle assessments, which would allow us to measure the level of embodied carbon and to introduce a national environmental product declaration database to standardise the way in which we provide data about the environmental impacts of construction materials.

We require a clear policy plan on how we can reduce energy emissions in our built environment. As I understand it, that is the aim of the national policy on architecture, NPA, which has yet to be published. In Places for People: Ireland's National Policy on Architecture from 2020, which emerged following public consultation on the NPA, it was stated that the State requires a build environment research platform that will have continuous feedback to inform high-quality design and construction. I have three questions related to that context. Will the final NPA policy document contain a definite proposal for a national built environment research body?

What form is that likely to take? When can we expect the NPA to be published? When can we expect Ireland to introduce the aforementioned frameworks and regulations necessary for carbon reduction in our built environment? What co-ordination currently exists between the Heritage Council, Department of heritage, Department of planning and Department of environment on these targets?