Ms Valerie Kirwan:

On climate, this year the Department published a roadmap for the delivery of the climate agenda and achieving its 2030 and 2050 targets. The Department will be reporting on that as part of the public sector sectoral carbon budgets. It is all embedded in the national development plan, NDP, allocations and funding going forward. I know there is a process for establishing the NDP funding for 2026 to 2028 and that, starting in November, there will be a similar process for 2024 and 2025 in relation to windfall receipts. We will deal with our capital pressures and climate at that point in time.

On the energy profile, we have an expanded pathfinder programme that is exploring options. We have also done the energy profile for about 600 schools and we hope to have the energy profile exercise completed during 2024 and 2025. That will give us a good view of the condition of the schools. If we then had €50 million or €100 million, we would know how best to achieve the targets. In some cases, we might pick the low-hanging fruit to do so. In addition, we are strong on the point that, going forward, we will have some element of climate action in our summer works.

A lot of work has been done this year to get solar panels up and running. I take the point that they are not in the system yet. A lot of collaboration has been done between the Department and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and we are at the stage where the systems are practically built, the processes are practically in place and the governance is there. Hopefully, we will be ready to go soon.