Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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179. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding any school in County Wicklow currently part of the pathfinder scheme, at any stage of completion and that seeks to fully retrofit older school buildings; the details of the work being carried out in each case; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20633/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications have developed a jointly funded school sector decarbonisation pathfinder programme. It is administered by the Planning and Building Unit in my Department and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland in partnership with devolved delivery support from Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board.

This pathfinder programme is paving the way for, and informing, a much larger national decarbonisation school sector programme.

This pathfinder is a great example of collaboration ensuring the deployment of new design approaches and technologies are introduced to the school sector on an evidence based approach. This programme continues to assist my Department to explore options and test various solutions for decarbonised energy efficiency solutions in our broad range of school building types.

It is facilitating research on a range of typical retrofit options for schools, which will be 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 school sector.

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 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.

This pathfinder programme has completed work to date in 48 schools across Ireland. Work is progressing in an additional 16 schools.

A Building Energy Rating (BER) of B is the targeted energy rating for these schools.

For Pathfinder 2023 one school in County Wicklow has been selected. It is Holy Rosary School in Wicklow Town (Roll number 17576B) and is in developed design phase.