Mr. Pat Barry:

We need to much faster on public procurement. It needs to be applied immediately to all buildings. Unfortunately, the private sector is leading more because it is driven by taxonomy and is required to do it by investors. We need that same situation in public procurement. We need to start with social housing. Some of the approved housing bodies we have been talking to have difficulty in drawing down funding to renovate their stock. We should start there. They have in some cases hundreds of houses that they could do in one go. That is the place to start.

On streamlining vacant buildings, we have grants such as the living city grant and conservation and SEAI grants. They all need to be streamlined into one substantial grant based around the total carbon mitigation of renovating a home in a town centre over and above another home. One will get a bigger carbon bang for one's buck from renovating those homes in town centres than a very large detached bungalow which may not deliver the same impact.