Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses might provide the committee with figures on life-cycle costing and the extent to which that is being done. I know it was touched on a little bit but it would be good to get it in writing, particularly some examples of the kinds of weighting given to environmental criteria and a sense of the extent of life-cycle costing.

I have two specific questions, one of which comes back to the issue of flexibility. Obviously, environmental and climate legislation is moving at pace. We have had 27 new pieces of legislation from the EU and there are a lot of new building regulations.

My other question is on the design of contracts, especially longer-term contracts. We spoke about the idea of the innovative contractor, but I am asking about circumstances in which the State raises the bar over the lifetime of a project; for example, by using the criteria to look for more as legislation and EU directives change. The committee has debated the idea that public delivery can sometimes respond more immediately, whereas a contract can be harder to shift. Is that something the witnesses have looked at? It is one of those areas where the context is probably changing more rapidly than some projects are being delivered. Is the demolition piece of embodied carbon something that is being factored in?