Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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127. To ask the Taoiseach if his Department is part of the public sector energy reporting programme; if so, the percentage of improvement in energy efficiency that has been achieved to date; the way in which this was achieved; if his Department noted a decrease in energy efficiency in view of the national energy efficiency action plan for energy efficiency targets; and if targets will be met by the 2020 deadline. [47664/18]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My Department participates in the Public Sector Energy Reporting Programme, reporting all of its energy consumption through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's (SEAI) Monitoring and Reporting online system. Energy usage in the Government Buildings complex, including my Department, is administered by the Houses of the Oireachtas. In recent years there have been some significant changes in the way energy services are apportioned among the different tenants of the complex and these changes have complicated reporting. However our returns to SEAI for 2017 reporting showed a 14.1% improvement in energy efficiency.

My Department is engaged with the OPW on various projects that will aim to achieve more energy efficiencies. This includes a lighting retrofits programme and participation in the OPW Optimising Power @ Work campaign. An in-house energy awareness event is also planned. My Department is committed to promoting energy efficiency into the culture of the organisation and will continue to work towards further energy efficiency and achieving 2020 targets.