Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Armstrong. It is good to know there is a video and a document but I am speaking about hundreds, if not thousands, of families who have been living in atrocious conditions for decades. If funding is available then either the political will or the active will is not there because nothing has been done about them. I will be back on to the Department about this. I want to highlight it because it is quite disgraceful.

When Deputy Whitmore was drilling down into the targets and figures for the past few years this is something I was thinking about. We are off target in terms of reaching what needs to be done. The Oireachtas committee's report on the built environment states it is estimated that proposals envisaged in the national development plan and Housing for All could push emissions from the built environment to three times the national target by 2030, with embodied carbon expected to increase by a factor of five in the same timeframe, accounting for 40% of residential emissions. I am sure Mr. Armstrong will not say that the committee's report is wrong. My point is that if we rely only on private industry, which has to make a massive profit, to carry out the targets and plans in the national development plan and Housing for All, not only will we miss our targets but it will be done in a poor way that will maximise profits but increase emissions. We need to emphasise that building should be carried out for the purpose of meeting climate targets and not for purpose of profit. It cannot be a way to make a load of money for any industry. This is something we have to take into account.

It is said that the most climate friendly building is the one that is already built. We know we have 160,000 empty homes in the State. Does the Department have any plan to fix up the already built environment that exists and which is empty and derelict? We know it would be expensive but it would not be expensive on the environment. It would be a very good and positive way of approaching these arguments.