Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There were a few questions from Deputy Ó Broin that were avoided. It was not Mr. Armstrong, but there were some that the other witnesses did not get to answer.

I wish to make a point on the narrative in the public domain, that people will have to move out of the house for the deep retrofit. That might refer back to the pilot scheme from the previous Government, which was very generous in terms of the amount of money that was available. People did root-and-branch work. It was more than retrofit. I saw houses with the roof taken off and floors dug up and so forth. It led to an impression that this work had to be done to carry out a deep retrofit. That is not the case and I believe you are correct, Chairman, that we need to get that message out.

I do not know how much time we have but I would like to hear more about the national building renovation plan which Mr. Deegan mentioned in his opening statement. It sounds very interesting. I do not know much about it but perhaps he could talk about it for a minute or two.

Deputy Higgins got away with talking about electric vehicles, so perhaps I could talk about cycling. When building new buildings, part of the life cycle analysis is how one gets to and from the buildings. As much as possible, especially in line with our objectives of compact growth, we should be encouraging people to engage in active travel and walk and cycle. One of the weaknesses in our housing development is that we are not putting in good quality cycling facilities. Often, there are the very basic Sheffield stands in the basement of an apartment building. There is a far higher standard. We should be looking towards a secure and sheltered standard. Across all social housing, every new social home should have very good cycle facilities to encourage the occupants to choose cycling over driving if they can.

I have a question for Mr. Hughes about the harmonisation. He said an A-rated building will still be an A-rated building, but will a C-rated building still be a C-rated building? If I heard him correctly, the most energy efficient building in the new recast BER is still going to be as energy efficient, but as one goes down the bands, there will probably be a mismatch so what is now rated C might become perhaps a B or a D. Could he address that? People will be interested to know. If they think they have a B-rated home now and under the new system it might become a C, they might be disappointed, but we should be very clear about it. Is it correct that the whole life cycle emissions will be on the BER? Perhaps he will address that too.