Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My next question relates to the financing of climate action. It is difficult for us as Members to draw a line under what is currently allocated for climate action. The whole philosophy is based on behavioural change. The people I represent are not in a position to switch from a diesel engine to a fully electric engine. They are not in a position to spend between €50,000 and €80,000 retrofitting a 1970s bungalow. If we are talking about financing, incentives have to be provided.

Local authority housing has extraordinary potential to take carbon out of the atmosphere. What would a scheme look like? Has the Climate Change Advisory Council given consideration to the cost of such a scheme? Has it looked at the entirety of the local authority housing stock in the country? We are starting with a project in the midlands, for which €20 million has been provided. We all absolutely welcome that, but I represent the people of Cork East. There are many people in Cork East living in local authority houses who do not believe they are eligible for such schemes. It is a question of how we incentivise private homeowners and those in local authority houses. I put it to Professor FitzGerald that if we do not have an entire figure for what has been allocated to retrofit houses, it is difficult to do an assessment of what we could allocate per house. Does the advisory council have a perspective on how we would finance that? I suggest that it must be part grant and possibly part savings. It is conceivable that when people reach a certain age, for example, when their children have flown the nest, there may be a few bob in the credit union. Maybe we could combine a grant, part savings and part loan. Has the advisory council given some thought to this?