Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If I need some more detailed notes on it, I will read them out in a second. My understanding is that we are close to finalising both these roadmaps. Some of them are linked to work other Departments are doing, including the Minister, Deputy Ryan's. The essence of our industrial heat roadmap is to break it up into three different areas. One is to deal with low-temperature heat to try to shift away from using bulk carbon-based fuels to using electricity that ultimately in the future will be generated through renewable sources. Another is to replace over time the high-temperature heat industries with alternative fuels that are biofuels rather than carbon-based fuels. Certainly, developing a hydrogen industry may be relevant in that regard cars also, but also other biofuels like methane and so on.

We will examine how we can use new and other technologies such as carbon capture and storage, particularly in the cement sector. Obviously, we need to reduce the volume of cement we are using. We need to use a different type of cement that is lower carbon in its production. That is happening. We can give leadership through State procurement by insisting that the building projects the State funds use either low-carbon cement or other building materials, in particular wood-based laminate materials. We can do much more in the new built environment without using cement or concrete at all. There is quite a lot happening there. For example, we are working with the Department of the Minister, Deputy Ryan, on the potential of carbon capture and storage. I do not want to give the impression that that is the solution to everything because it is not. The solution is to move away from the use of carbon-based fuels where possible. In sectors that do not have the potential to do that in the short to medium term, we need to look at other ways in which we can capture and prevent those emissions going into the atmosphere. There is a role for carbon capture and storage. I do not want to sell that as some kind of silver bullet; I do not think it is. However, it may have a very useful application in the medium term in the cement sector in particular.

The roadmap on the built environment is very much about driving the implementation of modern methods of construction, MMC. My Department has done a lot on that through funding projects. There is a demonstrator site in Mount Lucas, County Offaly. It is essentially a physical demonstration site of MMC, and many developers and builders have gone to see it. We are already increasingly seeing a very different type of construction on building sites. A lot of off-site infrastructure is being brought on site and assembled with a lower carbon footprint linked to it.

Of course, the materials we are using are changing too. That is not only about the carbon footprint of building a house or industrial building, it is also about the energy management of it afterwards.

When I have conversations with companies that want to build and grow businesses in Ireland, decarbonisation, climate and energy management are now a big part of the discussion, whereas five or ten years ago, they simply were not. Most, if not all, of these companies have targets to reach net zero at some point, probably ahead of where Ireland has set that target in 2050, and that goes for companies that rely on data centres and so on as well, on which I am sure we will have a discussion in a while. We want to get these roadmaps concluded. Obviously, they will have to be supported by other Departments as well, given multiple Departments are involved here, but both those roadmaps will be published in the first quarter of next year. We are pretty close to completing one of them, but there is a reason we will probably look to publish it in January rather than before the end of the year. Even though we have set a target of publishing it in quarter 4 of this year, it might be a couple of weeks late, but that is all it will be.