Up to €4 million (£3.6m) is being provided to improve the energy efficiency of government buildings across Ireland.

It is part of a new pilot scheme aimed at reducing the energy dependency of public buildings and cutting costs.

The buildings selected for the project are those that already have energy management awareness programmes in place through the Office of Public Works’ (OPW) Optimising Power at Work scheme.

Buildings that participate in the pilot are expected to see reductions of 60% in their lighting bills as a result of LED upgrades.

Jim Gannon, Chief Executive of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland said: “Improving the energy efficiency of our public buildings is one of the biggest challenges we have in Ireland and we have an obligation to work together to address this challenge.

“This pilot will allow us, together with the OPW, to identify the right approach to energy management for public buildings. This will then be rolled out across all public sector buildings with potentially significant energy savings right across the sector.”