Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Those at the top of the Civil Service just need to remind themselves that in the way of elections the legal local authority is those who make up the chamber. That is where the buck stops. There is an elected tier there that is in charge of policy but they are being kept completely in the dark. The Deputy may also see it in Kildare where funding is going down on a regular basis. The councillors have absolutely no input whatsoever and decisions are being made without them. It is completely undemocratic. We might as well call it mini dictatorships. That needs to change. It would not be tolerated across Europe or in other countries.

On the shallow retrofits, some 90,000 were completed under the better energy or warmer home scheme - or whatever it was called at the time - in 2011. By 2015 this figure had fallen to 62,000. By 2022 it was just over 10,000. Will the witnesses tell me what is happening there? I believe there is an accepted view that with some of the shallow retrofits one can actually achieve more - or maybe actually slow down in terms of where they are - and get them up a couple of stages with a modest amount of money.