Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to ensure we will stick to the spirit of the Citizens' Assembly report. We had a specific amendment with a target of approximately 100,000 houses per annum, but as a committee we have settled on a figure of 75,000. I agree with Deputy Eamon Ryan on ensuring there would be a social element also such that we would not make it too technocratic. That may not be the specific intention, but it could be interpreted in a way that would be too technocratic. We want to ensure we will develop infrastructure that will have the requisite skill set and the pot of money required to do this and set clear targets for retrofitting. The 45,000 target is too low, notwithstanding the fact that in reality far fewer than that number are achieved on an annual basis. There is scope to beef up the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, and work with stakeholders such as the Construction Industry Federation and academic institutions to develop short courses, for instance, to try to get more highly skilled graduates into the space to create a demand for retrofitting. We need to create an infrastructure that will ensure the primary user will not face an arcane or overly bureaucratic set of guidelines when he or she applies for a grant. That process should be made as seamless as possible. Our interaction with the Tipperary Energy Agency was very effective because it ensured it acted as an interlocutor with the service provider, the engineers and so on.