Mr. John McCarthy:

I did not deal with Senator Tim Lombard's question about retrofitting social housing stock. We are transitioning from the first phase of a retrofitting programme for social housing stock which has seen over 60,000 homes provided with cavity wall and attic insulation. We introduced the programme in 2013 and used the resources we had available to tackle some of the easier social housing properties. We are now working to finalise arrangements for a second phase which will be more ambitious. We will try to target the oldest social housing stock. Approximately 40% of social housing stock was built in the past 20 years, 30% between 20 and 40 years ago and the remaining 30% over 40 years ago. The last mentioned would have an energy rating between categories E and G. How quickly we complete this element of phase 2 will depend on the cost per unit and the overall funding available. As there are some 40,000 such units, it is a significant programme that will take a number of years to deliver.