Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 8 November 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Skills and Supports Required for Businesses to Meet Decarbonisation Targets: Discussion
Mr. Declan Meally:
I will start at the back end regarding the public sector. We do an annual report on the public sector. It is published and covers all 350 organisations. We can see exactly how each is doing and how it has progressed over the past couple of years. The public sector has been doing very well overall. It hit the 2020 energy efficiency targets and, with regard to decarbonisation, we are on the glide path to where we need to be. However, the challenges are getting steeper as we have to get into deeper retrofits. We are starting to get in there. One of the areas we are seeing highlighted as we develop the roadmap is the capacity within the public sector to take on these projects rather than just the supply chain outside. There are opportunities there. We have seen increases in the health sector because of Covid and the greater use of hospitals and health centres. However, in general, organisations across the public sector are doing well. Each individual organisation will now have to publish its own climate action roadmap each year, showing what it is doing.