Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators for their contributions. It is clear that there is support across the House for this Green Party motion. I thank the Seanad for the opportunity to welcome this Private Members' motion on the use of wood in construction.

As the Minister of State with responsibility for land use, biodiversity and forestry, I recognise the important link between our forest resource and the wood it produces. Wood is a renewable and natural product and we must work hard towards making it the material of choice for far more of the buildings we construct. We need to increase the amount of wood we use in construction and to address the barriers that are preventing architects and builders switching to this more sustainable product.

Last week, I was in the beautiful setting of Avondale Forest Park where Coillte and my Department hosted an excellent field of national and international speakers to talk about wood and share best practice. The theme of the event, "Build with Wood - The Pathway to Net Zero", set the scene for our direction of travel. We in Ireland have a great deal to learn from international best practice and we, too, can move towards a far greater share of construction primarily using wood. Our forests can provide all the wood products we require to build our homes sustainably.

We have set legally binding targets in terms of climate action and we aim to reduce our emissions by 51% by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050. This will require transformative change across the whole of society and all sectors to make significant changes. It will require changes to the way we construct buildings in order to lower embodied carbon and make them energy efficient over their lifetimes. We must ensure that we do not lock in high-carbon materials in the buildings we design.

I have just published a new vision for forests for 2050. This vision is rooted in the principles of planting the right tree in the right place for the right reason with the right management. It envisages wood as a material of choice in the buildings we construct. The motion aligns with this vision in calling for an increase in the use of wood in construction.

When I first came to this brief, forestry was in a difficult place after a series of court judgments that severely impacted the licensing process. I established Project Woodland to address a number of issues facing our sector. We had significant backlogs on the felling licensing side, which had a large impact on forest owners and the forest sector more widely. We have made significant gains in reducing this backlog and are reversing the trend across a range of areas.

To implement our new forest strategy, I recently announced a €1.3 billion package for forestry, which is now going through the state aid approval process. Once in place, it will provide a wide range of financial supports for the creation of new woodlands as well as supports for existing forest owners. This is the largest investment in planting trees in the history of the State and demonstrates the Government's commitment to forestry. Our national forest policy and the direction of travel within the EU place forestry front and centre in our climate policy.

It is also important that we acknowledge the excellent work that is taking place in timber research and innovation in timber technologies. My Department provides significant funds to research institutions to explore the use of timber and investigate the properties of Irish wood.This research provides the evidence and science to allow increased use of wood and to allow architects to specify wood in construction.

We have provided significant funding to a number of programmes such as the WoodProps programme in the University of Galway and more recently NEXGENWOOD, which is a collaboration between BiOrbic, AMBER and others to extract high-value materials from wood.

We must also acknowledge the excellent work carried out in Letterfrack at ATU Connemara in furniture design. Building in wood and furnishing our homes with wood creates important living and work spaces that can have positive impacts on our well-being. My Department supports the annual Wood Awards, which celebrate best practice in the use of wood in buildings in Ireland. Last week in Avondale Forest Park, which I encourage all Members to visit, I saw that Irish home-grown timber is being used in engineered wood products such as glue-laminated timber and cross-laminated timber, which is showcased in a state-of-the-art visitor centre. There is also an impressive new treetop walk and slide - the slide is not made of timber but the treetop walk is - which truly demonstrates what can be achieved in building with Irish timber.

We also need to train and develop our specifiers in the use and installation of wood products. TU Dublin is providing a four-year honours degree course in sustainable timber technology which will make a positive contribution to our timber sector. My Department also funds advisory services providing specialist information on the use of timber. All these initiatives are important but we need to do more to ensure that sustainable buildings using wood are increased at scale across a range of construction types.

The EU forestry strategy and the green deal recognise the importance of the use of wood as a significant climate change measure. Crucially, they identify the need to examine regulatory barriers in construction. The EU forestry strategy states that harvested wood products in the EU represent an active net carbon sink of around 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, while also generating climate benefits through a material substitution effect, with values ranging from 18 to 43 million tonnes per year. The strategy states that scaling up the production of long-lived wood products is limited by construction regulations, such as fire safety regulations, which do not yet fully reflect the technical possibilities of modern timber construction. I heard last week in Avondale from international and national experts that small changes to our building codes would allow an immediate significant uptake in wood construction. The EU strategy also states that member states should be encouraged to reflect best available scientific knowledge in the design of regulations favourable to long-lasting wood products, including by acting on the energy and environmental performance of building and construction products.

As one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions, the built environment has a key role to play in achieving emissions reduction targets. Carbon emissions from the construction sector are mainly attributable to operational emissions from energy consumption required for day-to-day running of buildings and embodied emissions arising from the production, installation and maintenance of the building fabric. In Ireland we need to build large numbers of new homes and there are considerable opportunities to increase the use of timber frames and to make greater use of cross-laminated timber, glue-laminated timber and other innovative products.

The Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD, which provides my Department with advice, has produced an excellent report, "Forests and wood products and their importance in climate change mitigation". It contains a number of recommendations which we need to progress, for example with regard to reducing barriers to the use of wood. Specifically, as an example, it references Ireland's building technical guidance documents, which effectively limit the height of apartments and buildings constructed using timber to no more than 10 m, or a maximum of four storeys. By overcoming barriers such as these in the building regulations, we could foresee future construction projects adopting mass timber construction and dramatically reducing the carbon-intensive materials needed. Across Europe we see large buildings made from cross-laminated timber which can be up to 80 m in height. In the UK we see Irish home-grown timber used in timber frame buildings over 10 m in height, which is in excess of what can be built here in Ireland. It makes sense that we use the best available scientific advice that allows buildings to be constructed safely and aligns with best practice. I also favour central government and local authorities promoting the use of a wood-first policy. I believe we should introduce whole-of-life carbon reporting throughout the construction sector.

In conclusion I am delighted to support the Private Members’ motion on behalf of the Government. We need increased collaboration between Departments, agencies and stakeholders to shape our policies and increase the amount of timber used in construction. We have ambitious climate targets and it is vital that as part of our effort to reach them, we increase the use of sustainable construction materials. Timber was the building material of choice for many centuries until relatively recently. It can again become the material of choice in the 21st century but only if we put in place policies to make it happen.