Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 171: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the measures he will take to ensure that Ireland will achieve the new European goal of 20% energy efficiency improvements by 2020. [27837/05]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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The EU Commission has commenced a consultation process on its Green Paper, On Energy Efficiency Or Doing More With Less, which was published on 22 June. A broad consultation is taking place across all branches of Government to ensure a joined up and inclusive response to this initiative. There are three main ways to reduce our energy demand: eliminating waste, cutting back on demand, and using fuels more efficiently. Every stage of every process whether industrial, commercial or domestic will yield efficiencies when examined and all these savings will aggregate to form a substantial total. Even while preserving our economic growth, energy efficiency will allow us to reduce our energy demand, meaning a saving on fuel import bills, a contribution to our Kyoto commitment on greenhouse gases and a payback to the Exchequer and to individuals.