Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

A developer planning to build 100 homes makes the application through the planning process. At that point, through the development plan and through engaging with the planning process and the national planning framework, or whatever it is, the developer should know what the carbon limit is for the construction of those 100 homes. The way they are going to achieve compliance with that carbon limit may be affected by whether they are doing any demolition on site that might be unnecessary with embodied carbon in it. They might choose to retain some existing buildings, extend and renovate. The design and layout of a project are very important in terms of whole-life carbon.

I have already referenced studies on that and issues relating to the number of car parking spaces, layout, design, active travel and infrastructure. These are all issues that will affect the whole-life embodied carbon of the whole project as well as building materials. The developer will be able to achieve compliance with the carbon limits through a range of these. If the developer decides it is important for the project to demolish existing buildings because they want to go considerably higher, the buildings are too old or for whatever other reason, they will have to meet their carbon limits in other areas.

Most of these are planning matters that will be determined through the planning application. I accept that the measurement of building materials is a building control issue. However, if the planning process does not specify the carbon limits for the project with the design done to meet them, it will only potentially be looked at in terms of building materials, and the other elements, which are also very important, simply will not come into it. This absolutely is a planning issue.

The Minister of State said this is done through guidance. The point we are making is that we are not looking at the guidance here; we are looking at the Bill. This is so important that it needs to be in the Bill, as well as in the guidance. There could be a change of Government within a year. That Government might be reliant on a block of TDs with no interest in limiting carbon in our buildings. That is absolutely possible. We could be in a different political scenario and then we will have missed the opportunity to ensure this is written into legislation because the guidance could then change depending on who is Minister for housing and so forth. This is far too important to have it only in guidance and not to have these important principles in the legislation, which is why we have tabled these amendments.