Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

There are two more issues. One relates to the sustainable energy programmes. It may be something the committee will consider at some point. I am not sure whether the Department's costings are right. I was on an annual call with a local authority last week. It made the point that the money that is provided to fully fund retrofitting of local authority houses is €10,000 short of the actual cost of doing the job and the local authority is picking up that cost. If that is the case, then I am not sure the calculations we are seeing in respect of the cost of it are accurate. That was the experience of the local authority. In the national development plan there was a signal that one sixth of the amount set aside for retrofitting was going to be from public funding. That means the remaining amount is coming from elsewhere. It is not entirely clear what the situation is in the context of the other schemes. Maybe I will follow this issue up separately because I am not sure it is a matter for the Committee of Public Accounts. Many of the numbers just do not make sense. It is very difficult to see how we will avoid incurring penalties if a significant amount of money has to be made up by individual householders in the context of the retrofit programmes. If the calculations of the Department in respect of the cost of doing that are wrong, then the amount of money that is provided by way of grant aid will be wrong as well. I will follow that up with the Department.