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

I have a technical question on this grouping.

With the Ceann Comhairle's indulgence, because it may be the last time I get to speak on the Bill, much to the delight of the Minister and his officials, I am sure, I will make a few general comments. In my time in the Oireachtas, having been here for eight years as a TD and over a decade, when I include my time as a parliamentary assistant, I have never worked on a Bill as long, technical and complex as this one. I want to make a few acknowledgements before I make a couple of remarks about the amendments.

First, I want to say that the committee Chair, Deputy Stephen Matthews, did an exceptionally good job managing the long and detailed discussions that we had. There were often very few of us in the room, going through the detail of the Bill. Deputy Matthews and I had some arguments and rows at the start of it, but in fairness to him, he ensured that those of us who wanted to scrutinise the Bill fully were given every opportunity to do that. I think we did a good job on that. We probably will not agree on the extent to which we were able to influence the final shape of the Bill, but I want to acknowledge the Chair's contribution to that.

The committee secretariat did an enormous amount of work on this. Given the sheer volume of meetings, particularly in a compressed timeframe for the pre-legislative scrutiny, sometimes with three meetings for 20 hours a week, the committee secretariat needs to be acknowledged for the significant contribution that it made. I acknowledge the long-suffering Bills Office. We tabled many amendments. My colleagues and I were responsible for many of those. The Bills Office was able to turn those amendments around at times when it was also processing the Finance Bill, the Social Welfare Bill and other legislation. It is appropriate that we acknowledge the office. To the long-suffering departmental staff, I want to say two things. I do not think we have ever been given as much briefing material, often at short notice, on any legislation. I thank them for assisting us in understanding it. We may have different views on the content of the Bill and its final shape. Thousands of additional words to the Bill and explanatory memorandum were provided. There was considerable time in both official, direct briefings and also informal conversations to help us understand all of that. That work has to be acknowledged. I have said many times that, whatever my criticisms of the Bill, they are not criticisms of the effort of the people who drafted it and have put significant time into it. I want to acknowledge that.

With respect to amendment No. 232, this is a technical question. The text of the subsection as it stands refers to a strategy relating to climate change adaptation and mitigation. That reflects national policy objectives and provides for the co-ordination of public bodies in pursuance of the strategy. The Government amendment seeks to replace that to say it is consistent with national policies and measures, including those pursuant to the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act. Because it uses the word "including", there is a query as to whether the strategy on climate change adaptation and mitigation could include other policies that either are not included or may not be consistent with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act. That is the rationale for the amendment. In some senses, we agree with what the Government is trying to do with its amendment but there is a fear or lack of clarity in the language, which our amendment is trying to address.

With respect to Deputy Michael Healy-Rae's comment, I make this comment constructively. Right across Europe, there is currently a whole variety of housing developments, some in rural areas, some in semi-urban areas and some in high-density urban areas, where public and private sector developers are using some of the most wonderful, cutting-edge building technologies that have far lower carbon content than the technology we use here, whether for self-builds, small and medium enterprise builders or larger developers. They are predominantly using timber-based products. One of the wonderful things about timber is that we grow it here and it creates jobs and manufacturing opportunities. We have companies in Ireland, both public and private, that are developing these technologies.

What I would say to Deputy Healy-Rae speaks directly to the amendment, which is why I am saying it. In those countries that use these technologies at scale, where government procurement and public works contracts provide a pipeline of work for such building systems and where the planning and building control regime positively incentivises people to use them, they are building high-quality homes that meet all building standards and fire safety regulations. They are doing it at the same cost as traditional building or, when they get scale, at a lower cost. Far too many new homes that we build in Ireland are built with technologies that are out of date. People are used to them and have never been given an opportunity to move in another direction. I know we have many disagreements on aspects of climate policy, which is fine. The Deputy is entitled to his views, as are the rest of us. However, we have a real opportunity, and this is where I agree with Deputy Matthews. Our committee has done much work looking at how we can ensure that new homes we need in the future are built using the best quality materials and building systems manufactured in Ireland which are better for the environment.

As Deputy Healy-Rae also knows, in many rural areas where his constituents are desperate to live, there is significant vacancy and dereliction and not enough assistance and help for people to use those properties because, of course, the lowest carbon home is that which is renovated and restored. In many respects, what the Minister is trying to do with this amendment, notwithstanding my concern that there are some language problems, is to respond to requests that many of us made that we need far greater integration of planning, building control, building systems and climate. I am not saying that this Government is going to do it right but when it is done right, everybody wins, which is important to say. It is unfortunate that the lengthy discussions we had on the need for the planning code and building regulations to address issues of embodied carbon have not really been included in amendments, but that is a battle we will have another day. If the Minister of State is able to clarify that one point, I would appreciate it.

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