Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the report that was sent to the Committee on Environment and Climate Action yesterday by the European Court of Auditors, ECA. The ECA is the body that is charged with ensuring taxpayer funds are spent wisely. Historically, the ECA had very strong words for the Irish Government about the way it does energy efficiency upgrades.

In 2020, the audit revealed that, incredibly, over half of the funding given out in residential schemes resulted in no energy rating improvements. In the latest audit, which was released yesterday, the ECA turned its attention instead to energy efficiency upgrades in enterprises, which include public sector buildings.

The Government, again, does not make it through this audit unscathed. In fact, no financial data were available. The State did not plan any funds and it had no financial information to report for enterprise energy efficiency projects. The EU programme allocated €2.4 billion in total and the funds were divvied up between 12,000 projects across the EU. Not a single penny of that money was allocated to Irish enterprises, neither businesses nor public sector.

While Government was wasting EU funds in 2020, this time it is wasting the opportunity to spend EU funds and failing to plan to spend them at all. Ireland was one of only three countries to not avail of funds for this priority. This is despite being in the middle of a climate crisis. Commercial and public sectors make up 18% of the primary energy use, according to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, Energy in Ireland report. There is massive room for emissions reductions through efficiency improvements and these sectors need to be showing more leadership in setting an example of how energy efficiency should be done. Instead, the opportunity to avail of funding to address the climate crisis has been squandered and potentially hundreds of millions are spent elsewhere within the EU.

We are in the midst of an energy crisis and it is not just households that are facing increasing energy bills, as SMEs are feeling the squeeze as energy prices skyrocket. One of the best things they can do to protect themselves from these price shocks is to insulate those buildings and make them more efficient. Yet, not a single penny of the EU fund was spent on enterprises here.

Why is the Department allowing such prime opportunities to pass it by? There was a Fine Gael Minister at the helm of climate change for the period in question. Can the party representatives keep straight faces when they claim the mantle of economic prudence?

What change has the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan implemented to make sure that the mistakes of his Fine Gael predecessor are not repeated? Does the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications have enough resources to make sure that it does not miss other opportunities going forward?