Mr. Declan Meally:

I will let my colleague talk about the research piece and I will address the latter question about the report. The report stated that we are in last-chance territory in regard to actions to be taken on it. It is down to all of us as to how quickly we can react and as to programmes. My colleague was explaining earlier that, even in terms of the embodied carbon, this is something that we are trying to collectively get our heads around at a European level, understand the methodology on it and how this can be taken into account. I totally agree, and said it earlier, that where we can provide energy upgrades using the existing building stock, using the embodied carbon that is already in place, that is preferable to building new units on green field sites. All of that should be something we can look at. I think the Department is doing that anyway and working with local authorities. There is an ambition to have decarbonisation zones. These could be seen as exemplary in order to help fast-track how we can do things with different local authorities. There is an opportunity to look at those areas to see if we can move things forward on it.

The targets that have been set are ambitious. There is an ambition of reaching the 2027 target. Everybody is working to so that we can move as quickly as possible. On that research and the discussions at European level, we can move as fast as the data comes to us in the context of setting standards. We have set a lead on that before with what we have done in Ireland. Under the energy performance of buildings directive, EPBD, we were one of the first countries out of the blocks in getting building energy ratings. There are always opportunities to try to speed it up but we have to work with our European colleagues so that everybody is on the same page rather than trying to rush ahead.