Mr. Brian O'Mahony:

The contractors could be stratified into two: installers who are doing single measures through our schemes and people who are doing the whole home retrofit. We deal with them slightly differently.

On the installers who are doing the individual measures, it is basically driven by competency. One has to be registered with the SEAI to participate in our schemes. That ensures an installer has the right level of competency and it is also a business that is paying tax, is insured etc. Also, as part of that agreement in registration, when works are complete, we carry out inspections of them. We feed that information back to the homeowner and to the contractor. Primarily, it is important the contractor or the installer understands our technical requirements. We get involved on an individual basis by going on site to do an accompanied inspection with them and by doing workshops with them.

At the one-stop shop level, our engagement is at a slightly different level because we are dealing with somebody who is doing everything from a technical design all the way through to the quality as well. We engage with them, both on that individual inspection level but also on how their business is working with regard to delivering all those services. Therefore, there is another layer on top of it. It is how the one-stop shop is working and how it is delivering the quality to the homeowner - everything from how the business is run to the customer interface, the quality on the ground and the handover to the homeowner.