Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I will tell the Senator privately afterwards. However, the self-serving myth that has been put around is nonsense. It has been very well put around by a lobbyist who buys a lot of advertising space. If it were true, one would have a hard time explaining the wonderful penetration which has been made by the timber sector in building and construction. Some great work has been done there. I believe it is a very good medium which has made a major contribution towards allowing us to build out. We should therefore stop dealing with the myth and deal with the reality instead.

The second and more important point, however, concerns an argument that is simply untrue. It is suggested that Irish homes are somehow or other sub-standard, whereas we have houses that are among the highest standards in the European Union. The proof of that is as follows. The European insulation manufacturers' association, which has no specific interest in arguing the case for one medium or another, made the point that Irish standards ranked very highly. They found that we have the second lowest energy loss through walls behind Sweden, and the lowest loss of energy through roofs of any EU state. So a myth has been propagated in that regard.

The second myth that has been propagated is that somehow or other we are lagging behind Europe. I will deal with this matter again because it annoys me. In the last ten years alone there have been three separate occasions on which energy ratings have actually increased in this country. I have made a proposal that we will shortly increase the energy efficiency of Irish homes further, by 40%, which is part of the climate change strategy.

Another extraordinary point has been made which shows that those who make it know very little about Europe or reality in general. It is the suggestion that Ireland is behind the game in terms of European comparisons. In my introductory remarks, I mentioned that prior to the EU directive being put in place, Denmark was the only EU member state that had a building energy rating system. Four member states introduced such a system last year and we became the fifth, having introduced it as and from 1 January this year. That suggestion is therefore simply untrue. It is a myth that is put around by a particular lobby yet, amazingly, without ever checking the facts, people in our media accept it. It is disappointing that people in the Houses of the Oireachtas have also accepted it.

This year, some seven countries will adopt energy rating systems, of which Ireland was the first. To illustrate the point further, the European Commission has sent formal, legal, reasoned opinions to 16 member states. Ireland was never part of that process. It has also been asserted that my Department has been reluctant to support local authorities in this area. The charge was not made in this House but in the Lower House. In fact, we have commended Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for its efforts.

I wish to thank and compliment Senators for their contributions, some of which were scintillating and in Senator Norris's case, Joycean — written in a language that most people do not understand, but that was Joyce.