Francis Noel Duffy (Dublin South West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to our witnesses for their wisdom and time today. I have been listening to the informative dialogue in my office. I was not in the committee room. I thank them for the informative conversation. Recently this committee produced a report on embodied carbon, which set out actions required to meet our carbon dioxide targets, taking into account that 14% of Ireland's CO2 emissions come from materials in the construction industry. My questions are therefore biased towards reducing embodied carbon, the limited use of homegrown structural timber and our urban design density regulations. Modern methods of construction, MMC, is a diverse area, as noted by the CIF today. It covers building information modelling, BIM, offsite fabrication, design regulations, health and safety, upskilling across the sector, to name a few of the factors. As already discussed, one of the newest methods of construction that emerged in the mid-1990s was the use of cross-laminated timber, CLT. Approximately 25 years on, a Wisconsin architect has built a 25-storey apartment and retail tower using what is said to be a European invention. My first question goes to the CIF. Does it see a role for Irish-grown C16 timber and MMC akin to the one our EU and US friends have? From what I understand from the CIF's earlier response, it does see a role, so I will ask whether it has any hope that the Department will evolve our part B regulations to allow mass timber buildings higher than 10 m, which might allow demand to follow. I have heard 11 m is the number. That is 1 m higher than 10 m. Does the CIF think it will go above?