Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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We await now the arrival of the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. I also apologise to Senator Boylan about the running order of these Commencement matters. Her matter is fifth in this list also but clearly there was a breakdown in communications somewhere along the line.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat, agus fáiltím roimh an Aire Stáit.

As the Minister of State will know, construction on the built environment accounts for 37% of Ireland's carbon emissions, and 14% of that is the embodied carbon emissions. Current analysis is showing we are not on target to reach our emissions reductions in this particular area. The Climate Change Advisory Council has expressed concern at the failure of the Department of housing to act on this particular target reduction.

Tackling the embodied carbon in building is one of those areas where is not seen as being as divisive as perhaps some of the other areas where we are trying to bring down our emissions, such as agriculture and transport. This is in some senses the low-hanging fruit. The Irish Green Building Council has launched a roadmap that is supported by 180 organisations and, as far as I am aware, has cross-political support as. That roadmap acknowledges that while retrofitting will decrease emissions from operating buildings, the new construction that is set out in the national development plan and the Housing for All strategy will negate these savings unless we tackle the embodied carbon in construction. New buildings need to mitigate the embodied carbon and cannot just be focused on energy efficiency. We know all new homes now must be highly energy efficient, thanks to EU directives, but we need to decarbonise the construction process itself.

Another good news story is that this technology is not off-in-the-distance technology like carbon capture. This technology is already here. It is timber-based construction and new building technologies. As Marie Donnelly of the Climate Change Advisory Council said on "Drivetime", Scotland, a country with a similar climate and population to ourselves, is leading the way in timber-built housing and new building technology. There is no reason Ireland cannot be doing the same. It just requires the political will.

Currently, you cannot build any residential property higher than 10 m from a timber-based product. If the building is duplex, the ground floor must be concrete or brick. This is, in effect, a ban on timber-based building technologies. Currently, Part B of the building regulations, dealing with fire safety, is under review as the Minister of State knows. This is the perfect opportunity to address this issue. Changing Part B of the building regulations can be done to both allow timber-based construction but also to ensure that construction is completely compliant with fire safety standards.That can include measures such as concrete stairwells and sprinkler systems in all apartments and mid-rise developments with fire escapes. If we do not do this, it will be virtually impossible for us to reach our 2030 targets in the built environment. We know that currently, 80% of Irish timber is exported to other countries. In Ireland, only 48% of all new scheme homes are timber framed but they cannot be used in mid-rise developments. This is also the type of construction we are trying to promote because it increases the density and creates sustainable communities. This is a win-win scenario all round. The question for the Minister of State, therefore, is whether the Government will amend Part B of the building regulations to allow for timber-based construction.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Boylan for raising the issue and providing me with the opportunity to update the Seanad on the steps my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, is taking with regard to this important matter.

The building regulations set out minimum standards for the design and construction of buildings and works to ensure the health and safety of people in and around such buildings. In general, the building regulations apply to the construction of new buildings and to extensions and material alterations to buildings. In addition, certain parts of the regulations apply to existing buildings where a material change to use takes place. All new dwellings must comply with building regulations and all key elements must have a durability of 60 years. The minimum performance requirements that a building must achieve are set out in 12 parts, classified as parts A to M, in the second schedule to the building regulations. They are expressed in terms of functional requirements and are performance based.

My Department publishes technical guidance documents to accompany each part of the building regulations indicating how the requirements of that part can be achieved in practice for common non-complex buildings. Adherence to the approach outlined in the technical guidance documents is regarded, prima facie, as evidence of compliance with the requirements of the relevant building regulations. The adoption of an approach other than that outlined in the guidance is not precluded provided that the relevant requirements of the regulations are complied with.

The building regulations are under ongoing review in the interests of safety and the well-being of persons in the built environment. My Department is currently concluding a review of Part B of the building regulations dealing with fire safety. The amendments will set out requirements for the design and construction of buildings to achieve a reasonable level of fire safety. While technical guidance document B generally limits the use of combustible construction timber in compartment floors for buildings with a topmost floor height of more than 10 m, the building regulations themselves do not prohibit the use of timber above this height provided compliance can be demonstrated and achieved. For new innovative products or systems not covered by existing standards, compliance with the building regulations can be demonstrated by third-party certification by an independent approval body, such as the National Standards Authority of Ireland.

It is critical to ensure that products, systems and, ultimately, buildings that are comprised of such products and systems are designed, constructed and certified as fit for purpose, having regard to their intended end use. Manufacturers of timber-frame buildings are assessed under an approval scheme operated by the NSAI for compliance with the Irish standard on timber frame construction, IS 440. This standard provides details on responsibilities, materials, design, manufacture, construction details, site work and services. My Department does not have an approval function and does not approve or endorse products for compliance with the building regulations or standards.

The Government's Housing for All action plan update articulates a critical need to enable a continuous and accelerated flow of compliant and high-quality innovations in construction, including modern methods of construction. This is to ensure delivery of Housing for All targets and the ongoing transformation of the construction sector. It also facilitates efforts to reduce the embodied carbon and life cycle environmental impacts of construction. Officials from this Department are members of the timber in construction working group, which was recently established by the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, and facilitated by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The scope of this group includes a review of industry capacity, technical research and guidance and the regulatory environment to support the development of mass timber construction in Ireland. The working group is a forum for the Government and industry to work collaboratively to increase the use of timber in construction, while ensuring the highest degree of building safety and property protection.

In addition, my Department is working hard to implement impactful measures for the decarbonisation of embodied carbon in construction materials. Reduction of these emissions will be driven at EU level by an updated and strengthened energy performance of buildings directive and construction products regulation.This EU legislation will create a harmonised framework to assess and communicate the environmental and climate performance of construction products in the EU Single Market. In accordance with the climate action plan, my Department is engaging with the SEAI to put in place embodied carbon methodology for new buildings from the end of 2025. In accordance with the draft energy performance of buildings directive, this declaration of global warming potential will be included in the building energy rating certificate.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for his response. We know that we do not have an awful lot of time to waste in terms of reaching our emissions targets. If we are waiting for the EU, through the energy performance of buildings directive and construction products regulation, by the time that is actually agreed and transposed into Irish legislation we will have probably already missed our 2030 targets. What we want to see is an urgency from the Department. We did not get that when it appeared before the Oireachtas climate committee. The Department certainly did not seem to think it was urgent. One of the things we are calling for is that the State lead by example. There clearly is a cultural bias in industry towards steel and concrete but if the State is using its public procurement methods to encourage the use of timber-based and new building technolgies for any public buildings or public housing, that is how we will set out very clearly to the sector that this is the direction of travel. I urge that we cannot wait for the EU to have agreement on this. We need to act now to stay within our 2030 targets.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Certainly, we are not waiting for the EU. It is worth reiterating that the building regulations are performance-based and technology and material neutral. These regulations are subject to ongoing review in the interests of the safety and well-being of persons in the built environment and to ensure due regard is taken of changes in construction techniques, technological progress and innovation. With regard to the current review of Part B of the building regulations dealing with fire safety, it is expected the revised regulations will be signed this quarter and the associated technical guidance document B, the regulatory impact analysis, will be published at the same time. I, along with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien look forward to seeing the output of the timber construction working group on the review of the challenges to the use of timber for construction in Ireland. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is supportive of the work of the group and of the development of standards and guidance to support demonstration of compliance with timber construction in building regulations. Compliance with high standards including compliance with all parts of the building regulations will continue to be central to the success of modern methods of construction in Ireland. Very significant debate took place on this at the select committee's deliberation on the Planning and Development Bill. I do think we are moving in the right direction and in our Department and across Government we want to ensure we decarbonise our construction and the building sector entirely.