Ms Marie Donnelly:

Does anybody know? How many of us know how much we are spending on electricity every month? Do we know how much we are spending on heating every month? Do we know how much we are spending on transport? Are these costs that we keep in our heads? They are not. When we do not have that awareness of what it is costing us and what is coming out of our pockets, it is very hard to move people into the space of being in an energy transition and all of the wonderful things that go with that. Senator Devine is right that we have to make this relevant to the citizen.

To pick up on the final point the Senator made because it is important, one of the things that the retrofit of a house does is improve the quality of the air and removes damp and mould.

I looked at the figures recently and in Ireland we have 470,000 people with asthma, which is the fourth highest in the world. I understand the Deputy is going to County Tipperary to look at them, but when some of the houses are seen, it can be understood why we have such a problem. When someone is hunched in front of an open fire, with all of the particles going into his or her lungs and a draught coming in through the windows and doors, it becomes clear why people have a problem with asthma and their health is limited. We tend not to put enough emphasis on the fact that all of this talk about retrofitting and energy efficiency actually delivers a healthier and more comfortable house in which to live. That may be an entry point into the conversation for many. It is something that is relevant to them and they can then start their journey towards retrofitting from there. The two most important points concern health and how much it will cost. The Deputy is correct that this is not a common topic of conversation in the pub and that it is hard to get the message across, which is why it is hard to secure community involvement because people tend not to get excited about an energy activity until it is almost visible and then they feel like they were not told about it and that they were not involved. It is all linked because if people were more excited about energy matters, they would watch what was happening and intervene earlier, but that does not absolve developers and policy makers in making things available in a transparent way and outlining what their plans are, what they will mean, what they will look like, the reasons they want to do it in a certain way and asking for suggestions, all in a simple way in order that people can understand with infographics showing what the plan is.

On the urban-rural divide when it comes to retrofitting, I have not seen any studies of it, but my intuition is that it is due to asset value. That is the biggest factor.

On the off balance sheet, I am not a financier and was only introduced to financing energy projects and renewables a few years ago. I have had many conversations with bankers and investment funds using terminology I do not necessarily understand; therefore, it is very new to me. It is new to my colleagues working in Ireland, both in central government and local government. It was not traditionally the case that a local authority would work out how to use money from an investment fund to achieve an objective. What was traditionally done was to tell central government that X amount of money was needed and it would be spent. There is a learning curve in how these new financial instruments are used and in partnership energy efficiency investment funds are needed. The organisations will fund energy services companies, ESCOs, such as Crowley Carbon which is very successful globally. They can fund the investment, run it for ten or 15 years to get a payback and guarantee the results for the ten or 15 years. There is that model and it works, but it is new.

On offshore projects, it is a huge opportunity that needs to be developed. It is not a panacea that will solve every problem, but it is a resource that can and should be used.