Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Actions committed to under the Climate Action Plan 2023 are reported on through progress reports prepared by the Department of the Taoiseach and published quarterly. Under this reporting process, a selection of ‘high impact’ measures from the Climate Action Plan with more significant abatement potential are focussed on in the progress reports. In 2023, my Department reported on 10 actions in total, and provided final updates on the delivery status of these actions for review in early January.

Pending final confirmation from the Department of the Taoiseach, it is anticipated that the delivery rate of CAP23 commitments for my Department will stand at approximately 50%, with three high-impact actions delayed. My Department is engaging with officials in the Department of the Taoiseach on the timeline for completion of the remaining actions.

I am satisfied that the majority of these outstanding actions are subject to short-term issues and they will not impact on our ability to achieve my Department’s emissions reduction targets.

The delayed high impact actions included the publication of two roadmaps – these were the roadmap for the decarbonisation of industrial heat in manufacturing and the roadmap on the retrofit of commercial buildings.

Drafts of both roadmaps have been produced and are being considered by the relevant Working Groups under the Heat and Built Environment Taskforce. They are expected to be presented to the Taskforce and published in Q1.

A further action, to identify actions to accelerate and drive system wide delivery of industrial heat decarbonisation, will be incorporated into and completed alongside the roadmap for the decarbonisation of industrial heat.

The third high impact action for delivery in Q4 was the completion of a report on ‘Reducing embodied carbon in cement and concrete through public procurement in Ireland’. Final edits are being made and it is expected that this action will also be completed in Q1.

While it is regrettable that a higher proportion of CAP23 actions were not able to be completed before the end of 2023, the aforementioned four delayed actions are fully drafted, at final stages of negotiation and agreement and will be completed by the end of Q1 2024. One other delayed action assigned to the NSAI, to develop a certification scheme for energy efficient retrofit of dwellings, has been delayed until H2 2024 due to a high demand for construction products certification and an effort to focus on delivery in that area.

On a proportional basis, 50% of total actions assigned to my Department are complete and 50% have been delayed.