Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 May 2026
250. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Education and Youth if and when the energy and condition survey will be carried out in relation to schools (details supplied); and if the findings of same will influence the time of funding to progress the works, which benefit planning; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38482/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn preparing for the decarbonisation of the school estate my Department needed to establish a national energy profile of the school sector.
A pilot phase of the Schools Energy Inventory project was completed with support from the European Investment Bank Advisory Hub programme. This was completed in December 2022 and included 601 schools across five Counties, Kildare, Meath, Offaly, Wexford and Wicklow.
Funding was subsequently secured under the REPowerEU programme to complete this work for all remaining schools in 2025 and 2026.
The phases involve energy assessors visiting the schools and gathering focused information on energy use for 2019, building types, age, and size along with an overview of general fabric and energy aspects of electrical and mechanical systems energy performance and energy consumption characteristics of each school.
Each school is surveyed by an experienced construction professional who gathers approximately 160 pieces of data, which includes high level building areas, different fabric elements and information about lighting, heating and domestic hot water etc. It also includes questions on building fabric condition.
This data is entered on a tablet computer onsite, it is then imported into the Department’s Geographical Information System (GIS) and processed into a relational database, which performs numerous calculations to determine a School Energy and Carbon Estimated Rating (SEACER).
The rating includes considerations of primary energy and carbon. It includes a comparison with a similar Notional school building for scaling and benchmarking purposes and is based on the Non-Domestic Energy Assessment Procedures and statistical techniques. This high level and strategic approach which is driven via the Department’s Geographic Information System (GIS) enables the database to be kept up to date to reflect future building projects etc.
This is a very cost-effective approach for an energy asset rating system for the Department and has significant advantages in that rather than producing individual standalone ratings and reports it can collectively capture the range of relevant issues for analysis centrally by the Department.
The innovative approach of bringing energy and condition data together in the one survey database has significant potential to assist with future prioritisation of decarbonisation and investments in the school estate, enabling identification and targeted development of future school sector energy and decarbonisation programmes that will reduce overall reliance on fossil fuels and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.
The schools to which the Deputy refers, were surveyed as follows:
• 63310T - St. Josephs Rochfortbridge – Surveyed November 2025
• Moate Community College – Surveyed October 2025
• 71420W - Castlepollard Community College – Surveyed November 2025
The survey process is ongoing across the entire school estate and scheduled for completion by the end of Q2 2026. In due course, once all survey data has been collected and undergone robust Quality Assurance processes, the Department will determine an appropriate and legible format for issuing the survey data to the school sector.
Only once the survey data has undergone the robust Quality Assurance processes, will analysis in relation to SEACER and Building Condition ratings be able to commence. As such it will likely be 2027 before any results of the survey will be available for distribution.
