Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if an energy rating of E is considered too low for social housing association units built within the past ten years; his views on whether it is an acceptable rating; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1754/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Part L (Conservation of Fuel and Energy –Dwellings) of the Building Regulations 2011, set down the minimum energy performance standards which buildings, including dwellings, are required to achieve when they are newly built or when they are subject to an extension or a material alteration or change of use. The Building Regulations include 12 parts dealing with a range of safety and related matters and each part is accompanied by a Technical Guidance Document (TGD) outlining how the relevant legal requirement may be achieved. Part L of the Regulations came into effect on 1 January, 2003. However, a three year transition period applied during which dwellings for which planning permission had been applied for prior to 1 January 2003 would be exempt from the requirements of Part L provided they had been completed by 31 December, 2005.

Under my Department's Social Housing Investment Programme, local authorities are allocated capital funding each year in respect of a range of measures to improve the standard and overall quality of their social housing stock, including the regeneration of large social housing estates and flat complexes, estate wide remedial works schemes and a retrofitting measure to improve the energy efficiency of older apartments and houses. In the case of the energy efficiency measure, the objective is to improve the Building Energy Rating (BER) of the dwelling to a C1 standard where possible.