Mr. Declan Meally:

I think there are four or five pieces to that contribution. Insofar as I can, I will address some of the general points. I might let Ms Coyle take the nearly zero energy building, NZEB, piece.

First, the Deputy is speaking about the sectoral targets and the processes. We collect the energy data from the top down from both public sector and large industry. We feed it into our Energy in Ireland report each year. We feed that into the EPA, whose staff will then compile the emissions. They will then work with the Department to look at the sectoral budgets. Our big focus straight away is the energy emissions in transport and heating systems in residences. That is why electric cars and home retrofits are the big focus.

Below that, then we are getting into smaller users of energy. Obviously, we will look at the decarbonisation of the public sector and the commercial side of it. One of the smallest energy users is agriculture. Yet, its emissions in other areas will be looked at.

We feed in the energy projections and the energy information. That will go into the Department to look at how that works and how that will feed into the overall carbon budgets. The Deputy is right. It will fundamentally change how the people will appreciate it when we talk about “a budget”. It will change how they look at things and how they consider, “What is my budget?”, as well as whether the budget is in the enterprise sector or in the public sector. It will give a whole new focus to the area. As I said, in our space, we are feeding the energy projections into that and working on them.