Dr. Martina Moloney:

The points the Deputy raises are relevant to the work the Heritage Council is involved in at the moment. An area we have identified as key in the new strategic plan is that of climate adaptation and how that relates to heritage. A number of the questions the Deputy raised in respect of embodied carbon, life cycle, the best building being the one that is there already and not going back to square one are ones we hope to address in the context of our new strategic plan to see where the Heritage Council can add value because that is what we are here to do. We have done work in that space already by identifying good projects where climate action initiatives by owners have managed to address issues around emissions and the impact of building work on climate.

There is quite a lot of work for us to do there. It is an area we will need to do a lot of research in. We do not necessarily have expertise on climate adaptation internally, nor is it that generally available. We discussed that matter of work over lunch today, saying that we need to bring in additional expertise to support the council.

I will pass the questions around the national policy on architecture to Ms Teehan.