Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. I have some additional questions and perhaps will pick up on some of the questions that were answered. With regard to the SEAI's grants, the witness spoke about the number of people who applied to the SEAI and utilised grants and how they could be activated to go further. Does the SEAI keep a record of the number of people who applied to the authority but were unable to access grants? How many are there? That is another cohort. Politicians often get queries from constituents who have applied but have not been able to access the grants for a variety of reasons. What are Mr. Gannon's thoughts on that?

One of the questions was not answered by the Departments' representatives. Who will monitor NZEB? There are two parts to it. There is the public building NZEB requirement, which is already in place for 2018, and I have a separate question about that, and there is the private sector and commercial buildings from 2020. As the public building requirements come into force from the end of 2018 and start of 2019, will all new social housing developments currently being developed hit the A2 rating or will there be a transitional period for that? I notice there is far more solar energy in the social housing stock now than there was two years ago in terms of the new builds, and likewise with schools and hospitals. Will the witness speak about the implementation of that?

I have two concerns about new buildings. On the basis of the slides presented to us there is no doubt that there is a significant decline in the installation of oil boilers but the level for gas boilers is quite persistent. It went up a little in 2013 and 2014 and then down. However, in terms of quantity, because from 2010 to 2013 we were building virtually nothing, we are building far more homes with fossil fuel gas boilers now. The negative impact on carbon emissions is far greater, despite the fact that the graph makes it look slightly more positive. I am not accusing the witness of presenting it in that way but simply making that point. Is there the same plan to try to reduce the installation of gas boilers as there was with the oil boilers? Given the 2030 deadline, are we not just storing up an additional cost that householders will have to pay or additional grants and loans that will have to be provided to remove those relatively recently installed gas boilers and replace them with heat pumps? What can be done in the building regulations either to phase it out as quickly as possible or if the gas boilers have to be removed in a decade, to make it as easy as possible?

I am particularly concerned about multi-unit developments. This is much more straightforward in a standard house but we are entering a phase in which there will be far more apartment developments. Making the change to a district heating system in 100 apartments with 100 gas boilers is far more difficult if some contingency is not made in the planning now. When I was a member of South Dublin County Council, we had detailed conversations about the Clonburris strategic development zone. We wanted to insert a requirement that even if multi-unit developments were not necessarily going to have district heating immediately they would be designed and built in such a way as to make the transition to a district heating system much easier if and when we reached that stage.

Is there any reason the solar panel regulations could not be done as quickly as the earlier presentations suggested? Is it just a question of a statutory instrument or is some other problem causing a blockage? That appears to be an eminently sensible way to go.

On the finance, the value of the HFA model is not just that one gets the lower interest rate. The way in which the cocktail of funding for the approved housing bodies works also includes the capital advance leasing facility, CALF, soft loan. It is a 100% loan but it is done in a different way. My question was not just looking at Government-backed low interest loans but also combining two different types of loans over a much longer period. That is all in the document so I will not ask the witness to rehash it. I will read it, but the more information there is about that, the better.