Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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359. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she has engaged with officials and or the Minister for Finance in respect of waiving VAT on school energy-bills; the structure and or supports her Department has put in place to assist schools with their energy and or utility-bills outside of the capitation grant. [25741/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides funding to all recognised schools in the Free Education Scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the Capitation grant to cater for day to day running costs including heating, lighting etc. and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff. These grants may be regarded as a common grant from which the Board of Management can allocate according to its own priorities. My Department has ensured that centrally negotiated rates are available to schools for electricity and bulk heating fuels. These rates are available through existing frameworks sourced by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP). OGP has run competitions specifically for Schools at a national level and the Schools Procurement Unit and the Department has communicated with schools and school management bodies informing them of the options available to them through these national arrangements. Information on how to avail of these arrangements is available via the Schools Procurement Unit website, www.spu.ie The VAT charged on energy-bills is a matter for my colleague the Minister for Finance.

My Department is at the forefront of design with respect to sustainable energy in school buildings and this performance has been recognised at both National and International level with sustainable energy awards for excellence in Design and Specification.

Schools that are designed and built in accordance with the Departments Schools technical guidance documents must achieve an A3 Building Energy Rating A3 and have typically up to 20% higher performance than required by the current Building Regulations, along with 10% of primary energy provided via photovoltaics and infrastructure provision for electric vehicle charging.

All new technologies and approaches are tested to ensure compatibility with school design and operational requirements. Successful and repeatable results are then incorporated into all new school designs and refurbishments.

The Department’s Technical Guidance Documents set the benchmark for sustainable design in school buildings with a clear focus on energy efficiency and they are based on solid energy research projects. The Departments policy is supported by a strong research programme with fifty three research projects at various stages including its joint SEAI partnership energy website project www.energyineducation.ie.

Under Project Ireland 2040, the education sector will receive a total of approximately €4.4 billion capital investment over the period 2021-2025. This significant investment allows us to move forward with certainty on our ambitious plans and deliver high quality building projects, with a real focus on sustainability, for school communities across Ireland. This investment will also build on the good progress being made on adding capacity to cater for demographic changes and provision for children with special educational needs. This investment will also facilitate an increased focus on the modernisation of existing school stock and help transition the school system for an era of net zero carbon by 2050.

The Climate Action Plan 2021 Annex of Actions published earlier this year actions the Department to confirm its decarbonisation pathway trajectory to meet 2030 and 2050 targets for the schools sector by end of 2022.

The Department recognises that transition to full decarbonisation raises the bar even higher in terms of requirements with feedback from our pathfinder projects as noted above indicating a greater depth of challenges at a significantly enhanced cost in relation to primary and post primary schools.

My Department and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland are involved in an energy efficient retrofit pathfinder scheme for schools since 2017. This Pathfinder programme is paving the way for, and informing, a much larger national programme for the energy retrofit of schools built prior to 2008 as included in the current National Development Plan.

It is facilitating research on a range of typical retrofit options, which will have been tried and tested. It is providing valuable development information for a solution driven delivery strategy which will be founded on a solid evidence base that has proven the robustness and scalability of renewable solutions within the schools’ sector. 

The pathfinder programme has retrofitted 41 schools across Ireland to date with work on an additional 9 schools added in 2021 underway. 2022 sees six additional schools undergoing deep retrofit to a Building Energy Rating (BER) of B with renewable heating systems. Each school undergoes a comprehensive assessment to ensure that the measures are suitable for that school and will deliver value to both the school and learnings for the national retrofit programme.

The pathfinder programme builds on significant investment by the Department of Education in energy efficiency through the 2009/10 Cavity and Attic Insulation/Water Conservation Scheme and ongoing Summer Works and refurbishment projects.

The upgrades target a Building Energy Rating of B, 50% energy efficiency improvement and 51% emissions reduction. The works typically involves upgrades to the building fabric including wall and roof insulation, doors and windows, air tightness improvements, LED lighting and heating upgrades as well as renewable technologies.

The Energy in Education website portal and advice programme (Joint programme between SEAI and Dept. of Education) also assists schools reduce their energy consumption and empowers participating schools and pupils to learn the benefits of sustainability. www.energyineducation.ie. Typically savings of between 5 to 10% are identified through low and no cost measures, while some schools participating have identified potential savings of up to 15 % or more.