Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

——that we are not meeting best practice in Europe. Does the Minister believe we are meeting best practice? In reality the standards in Ireland are lagging behind. Regardless of what his officials might say, the "as built" construction in Ireland does not meet building regulations and in some cases is performing at half the values prescribed in the building regulations due to bad workmanship on site. Is the Minister satisfied that we meet the requirements of EU regulations? Will he ensure that Ireland meets the requirements of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive from 1 January 2006 or is he content to put energy performance on the long finger as he has done with the Kyoto Protocol, the climate change strategy and the building regulations?

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