Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Obviously, if someone has Covid, that is completely understandable, but I understand that Mr. Warren Phelan was also to attend the meeting, and he is not here.

First, I thank Mr. Meally for the presentation. We are at a slight disadvantage, because the idea of these two sessions today and the session next week was in the context of what we are soon going to learn will be the sectoral emissions reduction targets that are relevant to this committee. The idea was that we could have an informed conversation around not only how we reduce the operational emissions through the retrofit programme and other related matters, but crucially, the embodied carbon, because it is one of the bits of the emissions reduction debates that does not happen publically enough. It is less controversial than some of the other areas, such as car usage or the national herd. I think many of us in the committee wanted to be able to try an inform that public debate. Obviously, SEAI's contribution is crucial to that. We might try and see if it is possible to get representatives of the Department in at a later stage.

Irish Green Building Council produced an important report at the end of last year, as the witnesses are aware, on foot of some research it commissioned from the UCD School of Architecture. If all the Government's targets and the work of SEAI and the retrofit programme works out according to plan, we will see very significant year-on-year reductions in the operational emissions from the built environment. However, one of the concerning findings of the report is that because we are way behind the curve in terms of implementing new building processes and materials in the built environment to reduce embodied carbon, as the national development plan infrastructural development increases, there could be an upward swing in embodied carbon in the built environment. We are particularly concerned about the area of housing. We want to see as much housing being built as possible, but we would also like to ensure that the housing is built with the lowest possible emissions.

First, are the witnesses in a position to give us any information about SEAI's work with the Department and the Department's work with local authorities or the private sector to give us a little bit of a flavour of where those conversations are at? It is a question that I would have asked the representatives of the Department, but they are not here. I am hoping the representatives of SEAI have some information on that. Halfway through his opening statement, Mr. Meally spoke about how the Government has some high-level requirements. He stated that "All new buildings are to be zero-emission from 2027 for public buildings, and 2030 for all others". Am I right in saying that refers to operational emissions rather than the embodied carbon? I am trying to return the conversation to what it is, in the SEAI's view, as a society that we need to be doing to ensure that as we are building more homes, and the more the better, they are built with the lowest possible level of emissions. For example, I looked at new residential developments sponsored by local authorities in London, and they are negative carbon. They are not net-zero, or zero. The overall embodied carbon and operational carbon are so low, with offsets provided, mean they are going in the other direction. Are there discussions or conversations ongoing, or is there anything the witnesses can share with us in the committee around that?

Finally, it is the intention of the committee to produce some kind of report, making some recommendations to Government as to what we would like to see it do. There are many members on both sides of the House who are keen to do that. The specific areas of responsibility that fall under this committee include issues around public procurement. Mr. Meally briefly mentioned green procurement earlier in relation to planning and planning law and public house building and the materials and standards we use. If SEAI had a wish list, what would be on that wish list, specifically in terms of how we accelerate the move towards zero-carbon buildings, particularly with respect to embodied carbon?