Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

At the recent Global International Energy Efficiency forum Claude Turmes the Minister for Energy and Spatial Planning in Luxembourg, said that ventilation is key and this has been referred to here. I am interested to know if ventilation is being put in all deep retrofits in houses that work technically. Mr. Turmes also said that perhaps a 30 year payback period is needed for a loan financing system, which is longer than I had heard or any of the figures I see here. Perhaps the Department representatives could respond to that. I do not know if that is viable.

Has anybody considered the Energiesprong method that has been prioritised by the Dutch for social housing? Are we looking at that kind of all-in-one, wraparound model?

Given the scale of the challenge presented by deep retrofit, should we start switching away from the small-scale grant? Is there a risk that if we keep going on the smaller jobs it will reduce the demand for the bigger projects that we need? I am aware this would not be popular but others may feel differently on it. I believe there is a real case to be made for it.

I am interested to know how many of the 100,000 workers who will be working in the construction sector Mr. Parlon believes would be working in retrofitting. Does Mr. Parlon have a figure for how many jobs he thinks would be in that area?

With regard to the work that needs to be done in public buildings, where is that in all of this? If I hear correctly from the Tipperary Energy Agency, it appears to indicate there is a problem because there is summer project work and then a winter valley. Is there a possibility of balancing that annual work programme with the work needed in the public buildings?

I have two further questions for the Department officials. Are we considering as a policy measure any mechanism where, if people are renting, landlords would be required over the next ten year period, for example, to deliver some sort of an upgrade?

I know that every house is different but many houses are similar. Is there any mechanism, perhaps in the pilot scheme, of really aggregating houses with a builder if there is a contract for 100 houses or 500 houses or a whole street? This would seem to me to be a way to get costs down. Aggregation could be the key. What plans do we have for that?