Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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117. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the status of the modernisation of the office accommodation portfolio in line with the Office of Public Works estate strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48286/22]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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A key function of the OPW is to provide office accommodation for all Government Departments. In this regard the OPW actively manages both an owned and leased office accommodation portfolio in support of Government requirements and policy.

The OPW has a significant and diverse office accommodation portfolio distributed throughout the country, comprising of 890,488 square meters at year end 2021, and including a range of differing types of office provision, from prestige heritage buildings to brand new grade A office accommodation.

To meet its strategic objectives of modernising the estate and making it more efficient, OPW constantly seeks to appraise the potential of the existing Owned state accommodation portfolio in terms of refurbishment opportunities, potential asset recycling prospects and future redevelopment sites. This is done in parallel and in conjunction with ongoing appraisal, monitoring and managing of opportunities which arise from within the Leasehold Estate.

Managing an office accommodation portfolio of this size and diversity present significant challenges, particularly in terms of modernisation. For instance, due to OPW’s heritage remit there will always be a proportion of OPW’s office portfolio in heritage buildings. Such heritage buildings, by their nature, present very complex challenges. The OPW’s existing office accommodation portfolio has a disproportionate amount of buildings dating from the early 1950’s to the early 1990’s. In many cases, these buildings are now raising significant issues for Client Departments, and are in need of major reinvestment.

In order to address the ageing profile of the office accommodation, significant projects are currently underway to improve the condition and quality of the portfolio These projects have been supported by capital funding under the National Development Plan, and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. This funding will go some way to modernising the office accommodation portfolio into the future.

Major modernisation projects currently underway across the state owned office accommodation portfolio include new office developments on Leeson Lane and Military Rd, Dublin and a deep retrofit project in Tom Johnson House, Dublin.

Separately, there are a number of office accommodation fit-out projects, in newly constructed office developments which are at various stages of their project lifecycle across the leasehold portfolio.

In addition to this, the OPW has an ongoing programme of fabric upgrades and energy efficiency retrofit projects in government buildings to enhance the overall condition and performance of our buildings. Central to these upgrade projects is the need to ensure that all buildings over time are increasingly sustainable and aligned with best practice relating to the climate change agenda.

Lastly, the OPW is currently collaborating with SEAI to deliver a “Building Retrofit Pathfinder Programme” with overall funding of €30M.