Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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188. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of rental properties that were retrofitted under each SEAI scheme, in tabular form. [27425/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Rental properties can present a specific challenge for energy efficiency improvements. This is an issue found in most countries where the incentives to invest in energy upgrades can be misaligned between landlords and tenants. The Government’s Housing for AllPlan commits to the introduction of a minimum BER for private rental properties, where feasible, from 2025, and to develop a roadmap to implement these standards. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is leading on this work.

SEAI supports are in place to help building owners to address the energy efficiency of their rented properties. As part of Ireland’s National Retrofit Plan, the Government introduced a new package of supports including enhanced grant amounts. These supports have been made available to non-corporate landlords and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to undertake home energy upgrades. Higher grant levels are available to AHBs.

SEAI does not currently collect data in relation to the numbers of non-corporate landlords receiving grant funding under their schemes. In relation to Approved Housing Bodies 437 homes owned by AHBs received SEAI grant support in 2022 and a further 151 AHB owned homes were supported in Q1 2023.

As well as the SEAI grant supports a new tax incentive to encourage small-scale landlords to undertake retrofitting works while the tenant remains in situ was announced last year. This measure provides for a tax deduction of up to €10,000 per property, against Case V rental income, for certain retrofitting expenses incurred by the landlord on rented residential properties, for a maximum of two rental properties. Details are set out in Section 32 of the Finance Act 2022.

The Housing for All plan commits to the retrofitting of 36,500 local authority homes by 2030 as part of the achievement of the Climate Action Plan retrofit targets. In 2022 2,283 Local Authority retrofits were completed, and a target of 2,400 upgrades has been set for 2023.