Noel Coonan (Tipperary North, Fine Gael)
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Question 361: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the status of an application for funding for a school (details supplied) in County Tipperary; when she expects a decision to be made; if her attention has been drawn to the urgency of this application; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16377/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is in receipt of an application for major capital funding for the school to which the Deputy refers.

The progression of all large scale building projects, including this project, from initial design stage to construction phase will be considered in an on-going basis in the context of my Department's multi-annual school Building and modernisation Programme.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 362: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she is considering the selection of an exemplar of a new school built to capitalise on technologies for a minimal carbon footprint and to incorporate best features of sustainable development which could be the Irish initiative under the OECD programme for schools of the future; and her views on inviting a school to pioneer such an approach. [16409/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Rather than develop a unique focus on energy design my Department has for the last number of years taken a more holistic approach and have developed their technical guidance on energy efficiency in school designs as an integral part of the suite of technical guidance documents.

The Planning and Building Unit within my Department have been using a process called the DART approach (Design, Awareness, Research, and Technology) to develop sustainable and energy efficiency in educational buildings.

The incorporation of low energy design has been done on a hybrid basis by maximising natural resources and utilising technologies. The guidelines encourage the design team to take a complete design team approach from project conception. This involves focusing on areas such as natural ventilation, passive solar design, day lighting and reducing infiltration, enhanced insulation, lighting and heating controls and water efficiency. The policy is driven by technical guidance documents, informed by building unit professional and technical staff, external partnerships and updated by continued energy research and development.

The focus to date on sustainability in schools has been to reduce the energy demand in schools. This has proven quite successful with modern day schools typically using three times less energy than schools built ten years ago and also using less than half the energy than what is termed as good international practice for schools. The success of my Departments energy programme has been recognised by the receipt of a Taoiseach's award. In addition my Department has received a number of national and international awards.

An information package is currently being prepared for schools on the most appropriate measures to minimise excess consumption of water and to reduce wastage where it exists. As part of this exercise, technical guidance and specifications for the most common problems that are likely to arise in this area will be provided. The demand for water in schools must be minimised firstly through push type spray taps, low flushing toilets, urinal controls, repairing leaks, etc, then the potential for rainwater harvesting can be maximised by reducing the amount of mains water used to flush toilets.

There is good potential for recovering or harvesting rainwater in schools to use for flushing toilets and where feasible these systems are being provided for in new school projects. Retrofitting rainwater recovery into existing buildings is not possible without major intervention into the internal fabric and services of the building (dedicated water supply to every toilet in the building) and external drains (separating rain water and external drains and re-routing to a central collection point).