Mr. David Dodd:

The 2021 Climate Action Plan set a target of 1,500 SECs by 2030. Significant progress is being made on this across all local authorities, particularly in recent years through regional mentorships. I will refer to one of the accompanying documents that was sent with our opening statement, namely, the CARO progress report, which provides some detail on the SECs. In the Dublin and wider mid-eastern region, 142 SECs have been set up, with 80 in the four Dublin catchment areas alone.

We view the SECs as playing a key role in the bottom-up approach. They are coming from the community and could be GAA or other sports clubs, local community halls or Tidy Towns groups combining with local sports halls. They come together to draft energy master plans, perhaps including the retrofitting of some residential houses, and then apply to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI.

An issue we have encountered is that of bridging funding at community level. There needs to be some funding for groups to draft energy master plans. We are overcoming this issue through a memorandum of understanding with the local authority sector, which would provide the bridging funding for communities to get their energy master plans over the line. A master plan might call for a community hall to be insulated, solar panels to be put on its roof, etc.

The Dublin region and some other CARO regions are working directly with energy agencies. In the case of Dublin, that is Codema. Other energy agencies, for example, Tipperary Energy Agency, are doing a great deal of good work through local communities and SECs and driving community involvement in energy efficiency and climate action.