In excess of 12,000 homes may have been built in Ireland last year, new analysis by Passive House Plus has revealed – with a marginal decline in energy performance evident as housing activity increases.

The commercial secrecy surrounding the fire-testing of construction materials undermines fire protection by potentially obscuring serious concerns, a major alliance of fire bodies has told the public enquiry into the Grenfell disaster.

The SuperHomes Ireland retrofit scheme is open for applications for 2017. The scheme is designed to help homeowners retrofit their properties to an A3 BER standard.

On Tuesday 7 March environment minister Denis Naughten launched the next phase of Codema’s popular home energy saving kit initiative in Pearse Street Library, Dublin.

The Scottish and Welsh governments have pledged to implement a landmark EU policy that requires all new buildings to be nearly zero energy buildings (nZEBs), while England and Northern Ireland may follow suit, an investigation by Passive House Plus has revealed.

Questions have been raised about ventilation standards under the government’s new Warmth & Wellbeing scheme, which provides free energy efficiency upgrades to people over the age of 55 living in Dublin 12 and 24, who experience energy poverty and are also suffering from respiratory conditions.

A scheme of social housing in Dublin has become the first to achieve the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC)’s Home Performance Index (HPI) label. The block of apartments at Rathmines Crescent was built by Dublin City Council and designed by its own architects. The label allows housing providers and private developers to highlight the quality and sustainability of their homes to occupants, investors and home buyers. 

Thirty leading environmental and energy groups have written to the new secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy Greg Clark urging the government to maintain its commitment to crucial EU targets on energy post Brexit — including the demand that all new buildings be ‘nearly zero energy’ (NZEB) from 2021. 

A cross sectoral group of organisations from government, local authorities, industry and charities met on 25 May to develop an ambitious strategy to improve the quality of the Irish existing housing stock 

The Irish Green Building Council has launched a voluntary quality labelling scheme for new residential development in Dublin. The label, called the Home Performance Index (HPI), goes well beyond the existing building energy rating (BER) system to look at a wider range of issues that impact the quality and sustainability of new residential construction. 

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has launched the EXEED (Excellence in Energy Efficient Design) certified programme, a new management framework which complements the Irish Energy Efficient Design Standard IS399. Up to €250,000 per applicant has been made available in 2016 for businesses or organisations undertaking a building retrofit, facility or process upgrade which follows the EXEED principles to maximise energy efficiency. 

Dublin City Council has voted to make the passive house standard or demonstrably equivalent evidence-based approaches mandatory for all new buildings in the city, after a similar policy was enacted in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in February. 

Leading Irish timber frame manufacture Cygum has said that it is possible to tackle the housing crises in the UK and Ireland by mass-producing high quality timber passive houses on a large scale.

Cork City Council has added cellulose to its list of approved insulation products for its social housing attic upgrades. 

All new buildings in south-east Dublin must be built to the passive house standard or demonstrably equivalent levels, in a move that may lead to the construction of upwards of 20,000 passive houses by 2022.

The Association for the Conservation of Energy (Ace) has described as “scandalous” the Chancellor’s announcement of a 42% cut in the help available to households living in “dangerously” cold homes.

Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council has voted emphatically to make the passive house standard mandatory for new buildings. At a meeting on Tuesday night, councillors voted by 26 votes to 13 in support of putting the clause in the local authority’s development plan for 2016 to 2022.

Leading businesses in the building materials sector — including semi-state timber company Coillte and insulation manufacturer Kingspan — have declared their support for plans by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to make the passive house standard mandatory for new buildings.

There is a great urgency, as Europe moves closer to the 2020 energy efficiency targets, to develop a skilled workforce that can work together to deliver low-energy projects. One EU initiative, Build Up Skills, has been designed to “stimulate the training of craftspeople and other on-site workers in the building sector on the topics of energy efficiency and renewable energy.”