Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegates for their presentations. A couple of themes have been touched on into which I would like to dive a little more. It is good to hear that the scale is increasing, but we want it to increase even further. The question of aggregated solutions is important. In that context, I was particularly interested in the better energy communities scheme within the SEAI. The scheme seems to be one in which the driver must come from a community. Is it one in which a much more active role could be played in seeking to encourage, target or co-operate, for example, on incentivised or larger subsidisation offers to communities? In other words, rather than relying on the push coming from the individual or a collection of individuals, we could look to have a real pull factor and a push in how we build. Clearly, there is economy of scale in costings in that regard. If we are looking to move towards large-scale and aggregated actions, might there be something said about financing?

One of the other issues that has been coming up consistently is the core requirement for predictability. Some of the issues surrounding predictability seem to concern finance flow. We really cannot afford to have these issues block the flow. The other issue concerns public buildings, in respect of which a very constructive proposal was made. Then there is the idea of retrofitting. Predictability is important, not just for the construction industry but also for employees. I sit on the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection. We have dealt with the issue of insecure work in the construction industry, where people are paid as individual contractors, rather than as employees. Again, longer term contracts could prove to be an incentive in that regard. Similarly, I expect pressure to be put on companies to reflect the insecurity their employees face.