Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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504. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the processes involved in conducting the national building inventory as laid out in the Energy Efficiency Action Plan published by his Department in February 2013; when the inventory will get underway; the staffing and financial commitment involved; the expected completion date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27094/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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As the Deputy will be aware I published the second National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP) on 28 February last, which reaffirms Ireland's commitment to a 20% energy savings target in 2020 in pursuit of our EU obligations. This is equivalent to 31,925 Gigawatt hours (GWh) or a reduction in annual CO₂ emissions of around 7.7 Mega tonnes (Mt). Recognising that Government must lead by example, we are committed to achieving a 33% reduction in public sector energy use by 2020.

Action number 20 of the second Action Plan states that: We will work with public bodies to fulfil their exemplar role with respect to building energy efficiency . As part of delivering that goal we have committed, inter alia, to developing an inventory of public sector buildings by end 2013; requiring that Display Energy Certificates are prominently displayed in all buildings that are occupied by public bodies over certain defined thresholds; and requiring that all new buildings occupied and owned by public bodies from December 2018 be nearly zero-energy buildings. The NEEAP requirement therefore is to develop an inventory of public sector buildings and not a national inventory as the Deputy implies.

I should also point out that under the Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU) there is a requirement to publish an inventory of central government buildings over certain size thresholds and outlining their energy performance by 31 December 2013. Member States have 18 months to transpose the Directive, with a transposition deadline of 5 June 2014. However, there are a number of policy decisions and reporting requirements to be notified to the Commission in advance of the transposition deadline. A series of subgroups have been set up with relevant stakeholders in order to progress the transposition of the Directive, with a formal consultation on the transposition and implementation of the Directive expected in Q3.

The Office of Public Works (OPW) manages the central government stock of buildings and they already have a register of the buildings they own and lease, which includes detailed energy usage information on about 250 of the larger buildings. This register includes central government buildings, some agencies and Garda stations. I understand they are considering adding buildings over 500 square metres over the next year, along with a detailed survey of their large owned office accommodation, about 120 buildings in all. More generally discussions are ongoing with OPW in relation to our NEEAP targets and related obligations under the Directive. The staffing and financial costs in relation to the inventory of OPW buildings are a matter for that office. My colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure allocated €9m over three years to the OPW in Budget 2013 to expand their successful Optimising Power at Work campaign to targeted buildings in the wider public sector.

As part of our Action Plan for Jobs commitments, we will issue in June this year a mandate to public sector organisations with an annual energy spend of €500,000 or more, to go to the market to identify solutions for the delivery of energy reduction services. In 2010-2011 the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and my Department developed and launched a comprehensive monitoring and reporting system to record each individual public body's progress towards the 33% target. A database of over 30,000 meters has been established to enable the accurate gathering of public sector data. This database is being developed with linkages to the National Procurement service and will lead to better procurement of energy supplies for the public sector. A report on public sector energy consumption will be published later this year.

Should all measures detailed in the NEEAP reach their full potential by 2020 it is estimated that a potential reduction in energy spend across all sectors of approximately €2.36 billion (at 2011 prices) will be realised. A very significant element of this will be Exchequer savings in the public sector.