Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the school buildings that have been built in the past 15 years, the Minister will find no dispute from me. They are fantastic, energy-efficient buildings using the best of materials and so on, but the difficulty is that there are more 4,000 schools, many of which were built in the 1950s and 1960s by the Christian Brothers, for example, which are not the best in terms of energy efficiency. We have a big job to bring the schools estate, generally speaking, up to scratch.

I return to the issue of solar panels and I might return presently to that of retrofitting and so on. The Taoiseach told us several months ago that this would be resolved by the summer and indicated the regulations would be addressed, but it went out to a further round of consultation. I am a big fan of consultation in general but I am not sure it was necessary here. When will the regulations be in place? It is a no-brainer in view of the energy that can be generated, the benefit to schools financially and the reduction in emissions. When will they be finalised in order that schools can enter the planning process or whatever kind of process will follow?

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