Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am afraid I got nothing new from the Minister of State's response, given that I have heard it previously from the Department. I was not asking about the quantity of schools but rather quality, which is why I raised the issue. I know there are many new school buildings and that is brilliant, but we have to get them right. As the Minister of State noted, we will research whatever is viable but we already know what is viable. The research has been going on for 20 years. We are retrofitting schools at the moment with air-to-water and air-to-air systems, yet we are designing new builds with gas heating. That makes no sense.

Current building regulations are of no interest. We want schools to be A3 energy rated, carbon neutral, fossil-fuel free and healthy. We want full school ventilation, not just in some parts of the school. The Department has been researching this for 20 years and it should have figured it out by now.

We have for years been fighting on behalf of schools for the signing of a statutory instrument. It was promised that it would be in place by the first quarter of 2021 but it has not happened. It would stop schools having to apply for planning permission to put photovoltaic and solar panels on their roofs. It is a disgrace that they have to do so. In this day and age, schools should be paid to do this. Not only that, they should be allowed to sell the energy back to the grid during the summer months. Given all the research and so on that has been done, it is not good enough. The Department needs to catch up. With 20 years of research, it should be doing better by now. The new designs are akin to 1990 designs. We are retrofitting some schools while repeating old patterns with new schools.