Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 14 February 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Building Reform Regulations: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The committee is somewhat frustrated because we tend to look at the building sector as an entity in itself. We feel there ought to be a single Minister reporting to us on the performance of the sector. It seems we have a very divided situation, whereby the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage looks after planning regulations, solar panel regulations and all sorts of things but then it tells us another Department must account for the emissions from the sector. Are we at risk of falling between two stools? The Minister with line responsibility will not have many of the tools that are essential.

I want to move on to a matter for which the Department is clearly responsible and this is its own procurement policy. To what extent does its procurement policy specify issues such as on-site waste segregation? Does it state that any building it sanctions must have certain standards in terms of how waste is managed and recovered? Does the Department apply a wood-first principle in its approach? I know other countries that are trying to be leaders in this sphere are doing this. What are the Department's instructions to those doing its design work? Is it telling them to wait until we hear from the EU and the legislation is in place? Is it telling them this is something that is coming down the tracks like a steam engine and we need to move ahead of the EU to get a handle on it?

Another issue I am interested to hear about is the Department's own buildings. Apart from housing I presume that local authorities are under the Department's remit. They are accountable in the climate plan for cutting their emissions. At this point is it possible for the Department to state the local authorities are on target to deliver their 2025 and 2030 targets? The impression I get with regard to the accountability of various organisations is that it is very patchy and that an effective tool is not being operated from the centre for units that are recalcitrant in meeting their public building targets. Is it different in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage?

I am also interested in retrofitting. The Department is making progress and I know it has been a difficult couple of years. An area where the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has significant leverage which is not open to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is that many of the estates in which it is upgrading 25% of its housing stock have already been sold to owners. They are privately owned at this point. To what extent is the Department going into these estates, whether in joint ventures with others or otherwise, and looking to leverage its 25%, or whatever percentage, ownership it has in the estates to get a collective move whereby the whole estate, be it private or public, moves to the new standard? Many of them are very old estates with the worst energy ratings anywhere in the country. The Department is in a pivotal and far stronger position than the SEAI doling out individual grants or hoping the one-stop shop would attract people. It has respect as well as ownership.

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