Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Chair will appreciate, in terms of planning, that it crosses Departments. In our case, we are before the committee this morning to look at how we are dealing with our targets within housing. There is a range of Departments here. We have a direct remit under building controls, retrofit, the social housing programme and so on. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is currently leading a decarbonisation of cement working group. The Chair is probably well aware of that. The updated national development plan has a climate assessment aspect as well. Our role in planning is to deal with laying down the framework for assessment of planning applications by local authorities and by extension An Bord Pleanála.

At the moment, we are looking at how we deal with large strategic investment projects and how they should be streamlined to An Bord Pleanála. In terms of measurements, the Department of Transport has its own targets on climate change.