Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge and thank Deputy Duffy for proposing that the housing committee undertake a series of hearings and prepare this report. It is an extremely important area of work and we have all benefited enormously from the hearings that were held. I also acknowledge all the organisations and the officials from the two Departments who appeared before the committee and assisted us greatly in grappling with this important issue.

It is also important to acknowledge a number of other actors. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's construction sector working group, and its innovation subgroup, have led the way in many of the debates we are now having. Enterprise Ireland has been very positive in respect of some recent research reports and support for businesses. A range of semi-State and private sector companies are emerging, some very successfully, domestically and internationally, and are producing very high-quality products, which we all will be talking about shortly.

I will start, however, by stating there is simply not enough focus on embodied carbon. As Deputy Duffy said and the report makes clear, it accounts for 14% of our current greenhouse gas emissions, which makes it a very significant sector. According to the Irish Green Building Council and UCD research that was presented to our committee in the context of the national development plan and its various components, even if we start to meet our operational carbon reduction targets through greater energy efficiency, embodied carbon will continue to grow significantly. Therefore, there is an urgent need to address this. It also needs to be said that, in some senses, there are quicker and less contentious wins in terms of emission reductions in this sector than some other sectors, especially given some of the very politically contentious debates about transitioning from car use to public transport, or the transition that is required in agriculture. It therefore makes eminent sense that the Government would do more, talk more and plan more for reductions in this area because these are ones where we could get far greater and quicker public support, particularly given that much of the technology is already available. It also has to be said that construction is one of the biggest sectors of our economy. It is way greater in terms of employment and contribution to GDP than, say, agriculture. That is no disrespect to the agriculture sector. The amount of preparation that will be required to ensure our construction sector, whether residential or otherwise, is equipped to make the transition is very significant.

Most importantly, we now have carbon budgets and legally binding sectoral emissions reduction targets. Not only do we need to do this; we have to do this. This is a legal requirement. I will mention one of the rationales for Deputy Duffy's proposal. As a committee, we wanted to try to get our heads around this. We started to equip ourselves with understanding and knowledge by asking what construction and the future of the construction sector will look like in the context of the requirement to meet those ambitious targets up to 2030 and 2050. Nothing will be done tomorrow as it has been done yesterday. Things have to fundamentally change. We have an obligation in our committee, regardless of whether we are in the Opposition or the Government, to ensure we understand the issues, can hold the Government to account, play a collaborative role in trying to ensure the Government moves in the right direction, and give voice to those people in various sectors who are urging us to do the right thing. That was the rationale for the report. It was an exercise in self-education and, through the report and these debates, trying to influence the public debate more generally.

Before I make many positive points, I will make some critical comments. I make these in a genuinely collaborative spirit. In this particular area, the Government is behind the curve. There is no other way of saying that. One of the things that struck me most during some of the committee hearings was a sense that we have to wait for the EU to take a number of actions before we can really grasp the opportunities of moving towards a zero-carbon built environment with both hands. The Minister of State said something similar today about the wait for a harmonised European approach to a range of matters. It does not have to be that way. There are EU member states which are already pressing ahead with many of the things Deputy Duffy mentioned and the Minister of State outlined in this case. In fact, we should be moving faster and we should be moving ahead, always with an eye towards what is being developed at EU level because, ultimately, a level of harmonisation is valuable. While some of those harmonised EU approaches are being developed, a whole swathe of preparation needs to be done in parallel so we are ready to go when it is most timely. For me, the most obvious example relates to measurement. We already have environmental product declaration, EPD, certificates. They are something that are done and independently verified by the Irish Green Building Council, in many cases. That system could be expanded, rolled out and strengthened, not just through the issuing of the EPDs but also through the monitoring and enforcement of them. We do not have to wait for the EU harmonised mechanisms for doing that. We can, should and must proceed now.

I will talk through my own take on some of the key recommendations. With respect to cement, the most obvious thing to say is the technology is there. Lower carbon cement is already in our marketplace and costs pretty much the same to produce. Therefore, we need a plan that should set a deadline of 2030 by which time we need to reduce the usage of high-carbon cement by a figure. I think 80% is probably reasonable but we could look at some others. Industry needs to be given a clear signal that high-carbon, dirty concrete and cement are on their way out. We also need to have incentives - the Minister of State mentioned procurement - particularly around public procurement. There should be incentives that would reward companies and building contractors that seek public sector contracts and are using lower carbon materials. That is just eminently sensible. In other jurisdictions, not only do they have those incentives, but they also have mandates. They have rolling and expanding mandates whereby over a period, first 10% and then 20% and 30% of all state contracts have to use these kinds of materials. That would reward the companies that are innovating and doing the right thing. For the big, dirty players, such as Cement Roadstone, it would send a clear signal that by a certain date, with these incentives, they have to get their house in order. Given the success and longevity of that particular company, it will respond to those signals if it is done on a voluntary basis. If we do not set out a timeline with clear requirements, it will not do it. That is one of the things we could do now.

Timber is another area. We have some very good companies, some of which are partially controlled by Coillte, and others that are in the private sector. They are producing cutting edge, high-grade, fully timber building products that are virtually zero carbon. All they need is support from the Government. What do they want? They want a pipeline of projects in order that they can grow and expand, in addition to changes to public procurement so that they get into the frameworks. In public housing, for example, we should have a separate, stand-alone framework agreement for these new building technologies and have targets. There should be a certain percentage of social and affordable housing each year, incrementally growing year on year, from these types of technologies. A development in Barcelona, La Borda, recently won a very important Mies van der Rohe innovation award. It is a fully timber building. It has a carbon content to die for and was also 35% cheaper to produce than traditional building technologies because when those types of technologies are used at scale, not only are they quicker to deliver and have a lower carbon content, but they can be much more cost-efficient too. The same thing is happening in London and Scandinavia. We have companies here that can do it. We need to support them.

There is no need for a long, complicated review of Part B of the building regulations. We need to get our most expert fire safety and building control officials into the room and ask them, if we are going to go from 10 m to 20 m for timber buildings, what is required to ensure the highest possible fire safety standards. They know the answer. They told many of us when we asked them and the regulations need to be produced very quickly. We are too slow to deal with amendments both to the building regulations and the technical guidance documents. This is a no-brainer, It should be done quickly. That should likewise be the case for public procurement rules and public works, and not just public works for local authorities and the State. We have companies such as Irish Water. There is no evidence that they are using lower carbon products in their buildings. That should be mandated and insisted on from the centre out.

On demolition audits and reuse - Deputy Duffy and the report spoke to those very clearly - there is no point having them in a policy unless they are a requirement under planning law. We have to change our planning rules to make it very clear that if someone proposes to demolish a building, that individual should have to justify it on the planning application. The planning authority should be empowered to make a decision on whether that is an appropriate use of that building. If permission is granted to demolish, there should be a requirement for the applicant to state very clearly what he or she is going to do with those enormously valuable and eminently reusable building materials.

The crucial thing is that we need a plan. The plan needs to be ambitious. We need a set of changes in regulations as outlined in this report and by Deputy Duffy and others. If we do that, we can have a dramatic reduction in the embodied carbon in our new-build environment between now and 2050 to take the heat off some of the other areas. Let us not just sit here and talk about it. Let us not just have a nice debate. There is a body of work for the Minister of State and his officials to do. If they do it, they will have the support not just of their colleagues on the backbenches but of the Opposition as well. We can make a real difference to the quality of our built environment and of people's lives and, ultimately, we can meet our 2030 and 2050 emissions reduction targets.

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