Mr. John McCarthy:

On the flood issue raised by the Senator, we are working on a four to five-year project with Met Éireann and the OPW to develop more robust flood forecasting capacity. We are in a process to expand and develop Met Éireann's expertise into the area of hydrogeology. There is a great deal of modelling work to be done to bring it to fruition in four to five years.

The Senator referred to the Project Ireland delivery board. I think representatives from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform are coming to the committee and have no doubt that the minutes will be publicly available, like any other document. There is no mystique about this. We have had four meetings of the delivery board thus far and it is has been about taking the NPF document and working our way through the things we need to roll out to ensure they will progress as envisaged under the framework. I referred, for example, to the regional spatial and economic strategies which are of critical importance in moving things on and which have been the subject of one of our discussions. Another matter which may be of direct relevance is that four funds were provided for under Project Ireland, one of which is a climate fund. We also have our own urban regeneration development fund within the Department. We are talking about how to move these on to have the available funding deployed to support projects of relevance as quickly as we can.

Retrofitting residential stock in general has two angles. We set the performance standards which apply to new dwellings and those which apply when dwellings are being renovated. The piece on which the Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten's Department is leading relates to incentives and measures which may need to be put in place to bring forward retrofitting. We cannot force people to carry out renovations under the building regulations, but we set the standards which need to be achieved when the renovations are being undertaken. However, there is a broader economic issue surrounding the economics and supports available to encourage people in the homeownership or private rented sector to bring forward renovation projects.