David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Office of the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this matter. I am also glad that the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Alex White, is here to take the debate.

There are two lovely hotels in east Cork, which the Minister and Leas-Cheann Comhairle may visit at some stage. One is Garryvoe Hotel, which has invested €325,000 in energy savings. The hotel has told me it has data showing savings running to €130,000 per annum since it made the change. Rochestown Park Hotel did something similar. It looked at energy and has seen that it has also made huge savings of approximately €115,000 per annum following an investment of €240,000. In two years, they will have made the money back. I was approached a number of years ago by a contractor who was very concerned about what he saw as an opportunity being wasted to save energy in our hospitals. I put down a series of parliamentary questions and received a great deal of information back. The information demonstrates that if combined heat and power - or CHP - was used in our hospitals, massive savings would be possible.

I have some figures that we have worked out. The 2012 energy bill at Cork University Hospital was €3.258 million. By making a number of changes, including moving to CHP or from oil to gas, and taking into account other efficiencies, some contractors say annual savings at that hospital could be of the order of €1.7 million. We have done the analysis for a lot of hospitals, including Merlin Park, Portiuncula, Mayo and Roscommon hospitals, and the savings come to approximately €5.5 million per annum. That is excluding the large hospitals in Dublin. That is a minimum saving. A great deal more is possible.

Why is this not happening? I have been asking the question for quite a while. I have been told that all kinds of expensive consultants must be brought in and all kinds of reports produced. Yet, two hotels in Cork have been able to do it very easily. They brought in Bord Gáis and said "Tell us what we can do". I am told that there is a plant in Cork University Hospital which is not being used and needs to be upgraded. Why is that not happening? It is simply a matter of plugging one out and the other one in. We have just had a debate on expensive medical cards.

This is money that could be saved very easily by switching over to gas. Many contracting firms have told me they are willing to do this for free and to share the savings over a number of years so there would be no capital outlay upfront.

I cannot understand why a much greater effort is not being made to try to save this amount of money. Perhaps it is a relatively small amount but €10 million would go a long way to help the budgets of these hospitals. If the Minister of State had €1.7 million extra per annum for Cork University Hospital it would go a long way to provide services for patients. Will the Minister of State have this matter investigated and come back to me and the House soon to tell us whether I am right or wrong with these figures? Can this be achieved and if it can be achieved why is it not happening? Why are we not making it happen? We have many consultants and experts in every area but this could be done immediately. I am sure there are many more areas like this throughout the public sector where it could be achieved. I await the response of the Minister of State with interest.

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