David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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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.

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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I thank Deputy Stanton for raising this important and interesting issue. The national energy efficiency action plan sets a public sector energy efficient target of a 33% reduction of energy usage to be achieved by 2020. The HSE is working to comply with the Government's green procurement guidelines, which require public bodies to ensure that a minimum building energy rating of B3 is achieved in all newly built and leased buildings from January 2012 and a minimum rating of A3 from January 2015.

A national programme for installing a combined heat and power, CHP, plant was initiated in the mid-1990s. Given the advances in technology a number of these older plants have been removed. However, a number of CHP evaluation processes are under way. These include University Hospital Galway, St. Luke's General Hospital in Kilkenny and Cork University Hospital.

The HSE policy on energy saving is guided by a number of programmes. In conjunction with Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, the HSE runs the energy management action plan and has rolled it out on in its larger campuses. It is also working with some of the major acute voluntary hospitals. The first stage of this programme is now completed.

In conjunction with the OPW, the HSE is also implementing a monitoring and reporting programme. Three large administration campuses have been identified as pilot sites. The installation of monitoring equipment on these three campuses is now completed and the energy awareness programme is scheduled to commence in mid-June 2014. Discussions are also under way with a large acute hospital. These pilot programmes will identify energy saving projects which may include combined heat and power installations.

The HSE is also participating in the national energy services framework which was published in December 2013 by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. It provides for public sector and commercial organisations, a standard and structured approach to support the efficient procurement and delivery of energy efficiency projects on the ground. In June 2013, the Minister with responsibility for energy announced the first tranche of exemplar energy efficiency projects to be supported by the SEAI under the Action Plan for Jobs.

The HSE is committed to the increasing its energy savings and is planning to deliver savings in future years and I have set out the broad context in which the HSE is approaching this important area. I note the specific issues raised by Deputy Stanton in respect of converting to combined heat and power plants. I bow to his superior knowledge which he clearly elaborated for the House this afternoon. Any innovative ideas a Deputy brings to the House deserve to be considered and examined. If there is further detail the Deputy wishes me or the Minister to look at in respect of this we will certainly do so.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for his response and ask him to look at some of the replies to parliamentary questions I have received over the past six months on this issue and the figures therein which are quite instructive. Perhaps the Minister of State could call the two hotels I mentioned and speak to the management there. I spoke to them today and they are delighted with it.

With all due respect, the response I have received is exactly the same as the response I received last December, almost word for word. That was six months ago. If this had been acted on then the Minister of State would have €5 million more to spend. I have very little faith in this. I have come to the House as a last resort because I have been pushing this at various levels with the HSE and hospital management and getting no response whatsoever. I challenge the Minister of State to personally telephone the hospitals, find out what is going on, visit them and make it happen because we are wasting public money which could be saved and the Minister of State is responsible for this to the House.

The speech the Minister of State read out was all very fine but it is fancy verbiage and does not mean much because nothing is happening. I have been raising this issue for quite a while at various levels and I am frustrated. The amount I mentioned as a potential saving is a minimum and a lot more could be achieved by making simple changes and bringing in serious contractors. Forget the fancy consultants; bring in serious contractors who are practical people and they will identify and make the changes in approximately one month. They have done it already in the private sector hotels I mentioned. I cannot see why it cannot be done in hospitals.

There would also be huge savings in carbon emissions. The Rochestown Park Hotel has had a reduction of 33% in emissions which has resulted in a decrease of 77 tonnes of carbon and 278 fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted to the atmosphere, which is equivalent to removing 150 cars from the nation's roads each year. There are other benefits and it is not just about financial savings. I challenge the Minister of State, the Department and the HSE to get working on this. I want to see serious results soon.

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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I am not sure if I can add too much to what I said already other than to see if we can at least obtain for the Deputy some more detail and specific answers to the issues he raised. If he has received the same response today as he did in December it is unfortunate. Let us see if there is any more detail we can get. I never have any difficulty in either telephoning or calling to hotels in any part of the country, particularly in east Cork, but I am not sure if it is necessarily the way we need to proceed although I would not exclude it. I will certainly speak to the director general of the HSE to see where we are on this issue.

Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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I wish to call Deputy Mick Wallace who has a Topical Issue on the ongoing crisis in Libya.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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No one from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was available today so the Minister of State, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, will take it on Wednesday.

Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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It will be deferred to Wednesday's Topical Issues.