New building regulations announced today will require all new homes built in Ireland to be 40 per cent more energy efficient from next year.
Patrick Daly, DIT
The regulations were announced at a Green Party conference in Co Wicklow.
They will require certain mandatory minimum standards of energy efficiency in all new homes, with measures such as heating system controls to reduce waste through excessive heating.
Mandatory levels of energy-efficient light fittings and provision for some level of renewable energy, such as solar heating, will also be required in new homes from 2008.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley said the regulations published today "will change forever" the way housing stock is dealt with under the building code.
"These regulations are the first dramatic step in the process of achieving carbon-zero housing. The benefit to the consumer in savings on energy costs, as we face into an uncertain future with regard to carbon-based fuel costs, will be a huge benefit to homeowners," he said.
"It will also make a significant contribution to Ireland's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas levels."
One environmental expert claimed the energy performance of a typical new Irish home in some cases produced "up to 200 per cent" more environmentally damaging carbon dioxide emissions than their British counterparts.
Patrick Daly, co-founder of the Research in Sustainable Environments unit at Dublin Institute of Technology said: "Building standards in Ireland have been substandard for far too long, leading to easily avoidable environmental damage, and high heating bills.
"As a result of the new regulations we will be much closer to the UK standards, and some of the shockingly poor performing house types will no longer be permitted."
The Irish Home Builders' Association (IHBA) has called on Mr Gormely to review the timeframe for the implementation of new building regulations.
"The industry does not have the technical capacity to achieve the Minister's requirements in such a short timescale," said IHBA director Hubert Fitzpatrick. "The proposed timescale does not take cognisance of the technical challenges being imposed upon all facets of the construction industry, and is unrealistic as a result."
The draft regulations are being posted on the Department of the Environment's website today and will be subject to a public consultation process. They have also been sent to the European Commission for consideration, as required under competition law.