Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 December 2018
54. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment to outline the engagement he has had with the Department of Education and Skills on the decarbonisation of school buildings. [53138/18]
View answerThe Joint Committee on Climate Action is sitting currently in response to the Citizens' Assembly report. Committee members visited Tipperary recently. I note the Chairman of the committee is present and the Vice Chairman was present up to a moment ago. We had the good fortune to visit Youghalarra national school. That school has converted to heat exchange technology. Effectively, the school has been decarbonised. It is a wonderful project. The school has decarbonised its heating provision and has moved away from oil and gas into using the grid for heat exchange.
One challenge put to committee members in the course of our interactions was that schools are finding it hard to use or deploy this technology. Has the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment had any interaction with the Minister for Education and Skills? In other words, has the Minister spoken with himself about this?
I thank the Deputy. I had some interest from the other side of the counter on this question when I was in the Department of Education and Skills.
The most recent report on public buildings shows that schools are one sector where the greatest ground has to be made up. Schools are well short of the targets that are generally being achieved. To be fair, the targets are being achieved in higher education rather well but not in schools. We all know the reason for that. They do not have access to resources and so on.
However, two points are really positive. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has been working with schools. There is a €14 million investment plan for the end of 2019. The idea is to test approaches and build best practice and building capacity for an energy refit programme for larger-scale schools. A total of 16 schools have been upgraded to date and more are planned for 2019. The Department of Education and Skills is exploring how the programme could be further scaled up.
Energy measures delivered include improving the energy efficiency of the building fabric, installing more efficient and cleaner heating systems and upgrading to smarter electrical systems. Outcomes are positive, improving the energy performance of the schools by as much as 40% in some cases as well as improving the teaching and learning environment for staff and students.
The community initiative that the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, referred to is, in many cases, improving schools. There have been some private sector initiatives that have worked with schools with outstanding results as well.
Another positive point is that the Department of Education and Skills has committed in its ten year financial envelope to deep energy refit for its pre-2008 school body. There is momentum within the Department. I hope that by combining the successful pilots that are up-and-running in many parts of the country we can roll out an effective programme. I will be talking to the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh, to see how we can accelerate this delivery.
I welcome the Minister's response. Could a formal engagement be made between the Ministers to put in place some type of service level agreement or memorandum of understanding? Can we develop an understanding for those who are tendering for these projects so that it would be as seamless as possible? Applications would have to measure up to the regulatory framework naturally, but the process should not be overly burdensome in terms of the bureaucracy or bells and whistles that contractors have to go through to roll out these projects at a speedier pace.
I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Joe McHugh, and he is up for something in this area if we can develop a scheme. One issue will be access to funding because 80% of the Department capital funding is simply to cope with population growth.
We need smart access to funding, to exploit the pilot schemes and deepen community involvement to achieve a broader range of interests who are interested in helping this to happen. We see how we can work together to develop clusters where this would occur. At least building blocks are emerging to enable something to happen.
