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

The Deputy is correct. There has been a considerable impact on the warmer homes scheme and retrofitting because of Covid, both last year and this year. I understand that the output in 2020 was 17,600 homes.

We will not know the figures for this year until a later stage. One of the benefits this year compared with previous years is that we did not have a stop-start approach. What we did last summer in the economic stimulus gave a clear signal to the industry that we would run right through the winter and into the new year. Traditionally, there was always a gap and one had to wait to find out what one's budget allocation was going to be and then start again. That stop-start approach was very ineffective. This year was the first time we were due to run right the way through. Until the lockdown, there was every indication that it was really taking off. There was a significant amount of interest and applications. The building industry was starting to scale up to this new opportunity. Obviously, construction was halted because of the lockdowns. It has only just restarted. It is to be hoped that the Covid effect this year will see us closer to meeting our target.

On the issue raised by the Deputy relating to the warmer homes scheme, I presume the lady in question is on the warmer homes scheme and is in one of the low-income categories that allow for 100% grant approval. One of the reasons for the delay is the significant increase in demand for the programme, which one would expect because it is very attractive in many ways. It helps to tackle fuel poverty and provides significant health benefits. It is an excellent programme but such is the demand that there is now a significant backlog and that will be worsened by the likes of the Covid effect in terms of us not having work.

One of the ways in which we are increasing delivery capacity is through having a wider contractor panel. That commenced at the end of last year. We have provided additional resources to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. It has been allocated an additional 50 full-time staff to give it the capability to turn things around more quickly. There are a variety of measures that have been put in place.

On the wider ten-year perspective, it was always understood and the Oireachtas joint committee previously recognised that it would take several years to build up to delivering 50,000 houses per year. In fact, what we will need to do in the latter part of this decade is to have higher numbers than that in order to deliver 500,000 houses over a decade. One of the key measures to introduce that will be putting in place new financial supports in order that houses in the private sector are able to get low-cost lending. That is one of the initiatives on which we are currently working. It is not provided for in these Estimates but it is one of the other ways in which we are looking to ramp up.

The last thing I will mention is the ramping up of the apprenticeship programmes, for which the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, has responsibility. Getting the workers will be one of the big constraints. Before Covid, that was the biggest obstacle. It is a changed issue now because there is such a high level of unemployment coming out of the Covid crisis. We need a massive expansion in apprenticeships. We need approximately 30,000 new workers in this area to meet our targets, not just in homes but also in Government buildings and commercial property.

The mechanisms I have outlined, namely, consistent funding, increased resources for SEAI, a broader contractor base, increased apprenticeships in this area and low-cost financing options, make me confident that we will meet our targets.