Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 2: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the action taken by his Department and its agencies to date to ensure maximum energy efficiency and minimum carbon footprint in their daily operations; the cost of these actions; the steps he will take in the second half of 2007 toward the goal of reducing energy consumption in his Department and its agencies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19202/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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To reduce energy consumption in the Department and to ensure maximum energy efficiency and the minimum carbon footprint in its daily operations, my Department, through its green team which was established some years ago, continues to implement the following actions——

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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That is, only a few weeks ago.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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——ensure all lighting in the Department's eight buildings is switched off overnight; ensure the Office of Public Works, which looks after the replacement of electric light bulbs in my Department's buildings, uses energy-efficient bulbs and long-life bulbs wherever possible when electric light bulbs are being replaced; ensure the central heating arrangements for the Department's buildings are switched on and off to achieve optimum energy efficiency; and ensure the staff in the Department switch off all their computer equipment — base units, monitors and peripheral devices — at the end of each working day, switch off their PC monitors at lunchtime and while attending meetings etc and ensure the last person leaving each individual office switches off all electric lights, printers, photocopiers and heaters.

These initiatives have had no adverse cost implications for my Department and have resulted in energy cost savings that are impossible to quantify. My Department will continue to monitor its energy consumption and will, where practicable, continue to implement steps to ensure maximum energy efficiency and the minimum carbon footprint in the daily activities of the Department.

Agencies under the remit of my Department are conscious of the need to achieve a high level of energy efficiency. Ensuring maximum energy efficiency and minimum carbon footprint in their daily operations is an operational issue for the agencies concerned. Although there is no formal policy in place in respect of energy efficiency in most of the agencies, a number of them have undertaken efficiency surveysand carbon footprint audits to ensure efficiency measures are met. Most of the agencies have not isolated the cost of minimising the carbon footprint in their daily operations.

A number of buildings occupied by agencies are leased and therefore the agencies have no direct control of the efficiency measures applied at the time these buildings were originally fitted out. However, newer premises either leased or bought will have stipulated sustainable energy efficiency measures such as optimising heating and lighting controls and water saving measures in their fit-out requirements. Waste recycling is also standard practice throughout all buildings occupied by the agencies.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

My Department and its agencies operate a travel pass scheme encouraging staff members to use public transport in both working and leisure hours, thus assisting in reducing the level of carbon emissions. Official travel in my Department is governed by the regulations on travel and subsistence issued civil and public sector wide by the Department of Finance, and provide that staff must use public transport when travelling on business, where practical.

Official travel in the agencies under the remit of my Department is appraised and monitored by each agency to ensure that travel is restricted to necessary journeys only. Wherever feasible, staff of agencies use public transport when travelling on official business. Video conference and conference calls facilities are utilised to avoid the need for official travel, where appropriate. My Department and its agencies keep appraised of new communications technology in an attempt to further reduce the need for staff to travel.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I am conscious of time but I officially congratulate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on his appointment. This is the first occasion I have had to do so.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Injury time will be provided so that it does not impact on the Deputy's speaking time.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I also congratulate the Minister and his team, including the Minister of State, Deputy Billy Kelleher, whose appointment is long overdue. This is clearly a case of Cork versus the rest of the country in terms of the ministerial turnout. They should all be wearing red ties, if not red jerseys.

I appreciate that it is early in the season of replies but I invite the Minister to read his reply in the privacy of his office and realise what nonsense it is. He states that he cannot possibly measure the impact of energy savings. Turning off those machines is clearly a waste of time if one cannot measure the outcome of it. One can look at a bill, as any sensible householder would, and see the impact of turning off all the PCs by comparing what the bill was before. This is the new reality for all of us and I invite the Minister to reconsider, before we get back to real politics in September, measures by which we can quantify the impact of carbon footprint. If the Department cannot identify and measure the cost reductions it is not in the real business of addressing the question of energy conservation. The Minister has responsibility for the relative agencies and leasehold of buildings. That agencies do not have responsibility for heating because they have leased a building is a cop-out. They have responsibility for energy conservation.

I must adjust my observations about the all-Cork turnout now that Deputy McGuinness has arrived. I congratulate Kilkenny on beating Wexford last week. It was a tour de force.

If we are serious about the issue, which is equivalent to gender equality in the past decade, we need measurement and efficiency. Systems of analysis, measurement, monitoring and quantifying of cost savings must be improved. The reply leaves much to be desired.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is easy to make points like that but before I arrived in the Department a green team of officials had been set up to support a green officer. We may look flippantly at issues such as turning off lights but it is recognised in research that enormous savings can be made. I take Deputy Quinn's point about quantifying it but I do not know the baseline from a few years ago. The Power of One campaign was launched by another Department. If everyone took incremental steps in terms of energy efficiency, much would be achieved.

IDA Ireland is very conscious of the need to achieve the highest level of energy efficiency in its operations. It introduced a number of energy conservation measures last year following receipt of an environmental audit by the head lessee of the building. Waste recycling is standard practice in all Enterprise Ireland offices. The agency is taking a range of actions through a building management system that optimises heating and lighting control. The maintenance of this equipment costs €6,000 per annum. Water saving measures are taken in all rest rooms. It is moving to one building in Dublin from four buildings.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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A sensible decision.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes. As part of the fit-out of the new offices, Enterprise Ireland engaged sustainability consultants, including a specialist from Sustainable Energy Ireland. A feasibility study is being carried out by Sustainable Energy Solutions under the headings of environmental strategies, energy utilisation and development of advanced building management system. This seeks to achieve the broad public sector target of 33% energy saving by pursuing an energy efficiency programme with targets and standards. A later question will deal with further points in this regard.