Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)
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2508. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on the public and private financial resources required and available to support his Department’s plans to meet Ireland’s climate targets by 2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19098/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Universities are autonomous bodies established under statute and as such have access to both public and private funding streams. The expenditure of a University’s income is a matter for the individual institution and this includes decisions in relation to decarbonisation activities.

The scale of the challenge posed by the 2030 targets for the Tertiary Sector will require a system-level response, focused leadership, and significant capacity and capital investment.

The following measures are already being implemented to ensure that we meet the climate targets for the tertiary sector:

• The Energy Efficiency and Decarbonisation Pathfinder Programme (EEDPP) in Higher Education, first introduced in 2020 and co-funded by my Department and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) administered through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and Higher Education Authority (HEA), has seen funding of €100m being ringfenced under the Fund for a range of suitable projects. The EEDPP continues to test a range of building retrofit approaches to build evidence and capability in the sector, and to inform decisions as larger scale programmes are rolled out in the future.
• In addition, in January 2025 an Energy Efficiency & Decarbonisation Pathfinder programme (EEDPP) was announced for the Further Education & Training sector. Similar to the HE Pathfinder it will be co-funded by DFHERIS and DECC and administered through the SEAI and SOLAS with a total co-funded budget of €60m.
• As part of Budget 2025, Government agreed a total National Training Fund (NTF) funding package of €1.485bn over a six year period (2025-2030) for the tertiary sector; to include €150m for the upgrade and decarbonisation of the tertiary estate.
• The further and higher education sectors may also use devolved grant funding, including the new Green Devolved Grant funding stream for the FET sector with annual funding of €8m for three years, to directly invest in works to support energy efficiency and emissions reductions initiatives for their buildings.

To meet existing decarbonisation targets for the public sector will require significant levels of exchequer funding in NDP allocations. Both public and private funding will be part of the solution to the funding challenge of public sector retrofit projects.