Climate targets in construction
Marc Ó Cathasaigh pressed the Government on missing climate targets and the carbon cost of construction. Coveney said Cabinet had discussed using modern methods of construction in social housing to reduce emissions while improving delivery.
The Minister spoke to this in the general but I will ask him a specific question. The chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council, Marie Donnelly, confirms we are in danger of missing our 2025 targets with all of the attendant consequences, including a lost to the Exchequer of some €8 billion as outlined by the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, last week. We are seeing good reductions and good progress in some sectors. Energy is a prime example and we are doing well in agriculture as well. However, construction is difficult in terms of how we balance a housing crisis against the needs to act within a climate crisis. The problem is concrete. The solution - or at least part of it - is timber. Our use of timber in construction in Ireland is far lower than that of our counterparts, in Scotland in particular. It can be literally home grown, locks up carbon for the long term, and should sit well with modern methods of construction for rapid-build social homes, for example. The Minister of State, Senator Hackett, instituted a new interdepartmental and industry steering group on timber in construction in November of last year but I want to know when we will see some sort of implementable outputs from that forum.
Comment on this
There are a number of questions there but they are all very relevant. I am glad to hear the Deputy recognising that we are making progress in the context of agriculture and energy. On construction, we discussed that in Cabinet today, that is, the use of modern methods of construction in the building of social housing, so that the Government can lead by example in this. There is a lot more structure and delivery now in terms of social housing being built using modern methods of construction, more timber, more timber laminate and less concrete. This is obviously trying to drive down the carbon footprint of building the home but also trying to ensure a reduced need for energy in the home afterwards. Therefore, significant progress is being made here and I can send the Deputy some of that detail after questions.