Dr. Ciaran Byrne:

I thank Senator McGahon for those comments. Mr. Walsh mentioned the social justice element of our work. It is incumbent on us to make sure that does not happen. We do not have information on it but we will be keeping a close eye on it and linking in to the other State agencies and services in this regard.

For the vast majority of retrofits, people do not need to move out. What sometimes happens in retrofits, not necessarily on the rental market side, is that somebody decides to do a retrofit as part of a bigger, wider renovation of the home. For example, they might pull out the kitchen and do the whole thing. That may be a situation where someone needs to move out of his or her home. However, if someone is in a home and doing the broad B2 level retrofit, there are very few situations where he or she has to move out. We see it sometimes in warmer homes scheme. Again, much of it is for health reasons and things such as that, more so than actually having to move out of the home.

We do not have information on the schemes yet that this is happening or has happened. We are alert and aware of them. We have a social justice side as well and it is very important for us because reputational damage could occur quickly, which could have significant impacts as well. We will be keeping very close watch on this. If it materialises and becomes a problem, we will be prepared to look at and work on our schemes. We have levers we could probably put in place in terms of the eligibility for grants and what must happen. However, it is around doing that massive renovation in which one might be pulling out the entire home or building an extension. In some cases, people do move out. However, for the retrofit piece, by and large, people do not have to move out.