Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have to chair a meeting soon so I will miss some of the commentary. I welcome our guests. It is very interesting and enlightening. They are at the cutting edge of what we should be doing. What they are doing is not being done everywhere, as they have stated. They clearly have the energy, knowledge base, enthusiasm and professionalism. How do we replicate that across the country in a way that is focused on outcomes? How do we replicate it in Louth, Meath or wherever? Mr. Kenny said there were two agencies still in existence. What is the other group?

When I get my energy bill after the winter months, I tell myself I had better do something about it. Most of us do not do anything because we know the bill is going to reduce for March and April. Something that might be useful that I did not see on my energy bill would be a reference to a hotline or a way to communicate with someone. Around February, I got a list from my local council of professionals I could go to who are registered and qualified to do BER work. People are thinking about energy bills, particularly in the winter. A hotline on the bill to encourage them to ring might be helpful, whether that is the SEAI or otherwise. Perhaps it is already there and I have not seen it. I understand that the ESB was talking about a scheme at one stage whereby whatever a person's energy costs were, it would keep them at a constant and that it would fund retrofitting energy improvements in the home. I do not know where that scheme is now. If one changed one's energy usage in terms of reducing the carbon footprint, the ESB would put that in and the bill would not get any dearer. People would know the maximum exposure they would have. That was an important point.

The people who need fuel most are older people and very young children. Older people often live in the least energy-efficient homes.

I know local authorities do much excellent work but what more could or should we do? Should we target older people in a special way?

I may have referred at a previous meeting to a decision taken by the local authority in Drogheda in the 1970s. Fossil fuels at the time were so expensive and electricity so cheap that the local authority, in its wisdom, decided that it would no longer provide chimneys in new houses. The oil crisis followed immediately and people could not heat their homes. The local authority then had to build chimneys in order that people could use fossil fuels again which, at that time, were cheaper than the electricity available from the ESB. Whatever is done, we must ensure the energy resource is available indefinitely and will not be subject to market forces, as happened in the 1970s. That was the trend then. I agree that we must reduce our carbon footprint.

Our guests are saying that people might be listening but are not acting. There is no communication pathway that provides access to key decision makers across Departments and three Departments were mentioned. Can we make a recommendation to Ministers that they ensure that they have the same agenda as the witnesses? There is no point in coming back in three years to say we should have done this, that or the other. Those are my main points.