Dr. Ciaran Byrne:

On the warmer homes waiting list, as of the end of December last year, we had 7,500 on the waiting list. The plan for this year is to do approximately 400 homes a month. That would be a 4,800 turnout this year. As of this morning we have 865 homes delivered under the warmer homes schemes. We have not hit the 400 a month rate yet. We have 474 in March and slightly fewer than that in February. Obviously, a lot of that is to do with the timing. We have a contractor panel of about 30 contractors who have been working very closely with us to see all the pain points in terms of their delivery. Some of those are to do with inflation and some are to do with internal and external processes. I have been working directly with the contractors to remove those pain points to improve their delivery and outputs. We believe we will hit the 400 monthly target in the next two months and then we hope to exceed that so that we will come in at the average for the year.

On the figures year by year and scheme by scheme, we have targets we can provide to the committee. We have the figures on the B2 and non-B2 and so on. However, we anticipate the schemes will change in the coming years, so it is about the annual targets and how we package them.

The Deputy asked about the attic cavity; that is the 80% grant. To be clear, while we are registering the one-stop shops, the better energy homes programme is and has been active all the way along. At this exact time, we have received 9,116 applications across the solar PV programme. That is approximately 46% of the total number of applications received from last year. On the attic cavity grant, which is the 80% grant, we have been heading for a 350% increase between January and March - that is in the quarter 1 figures - which is a significant increase in uptake. They are the 80% grants. An important point for the committee is that the grant levels available in the one-stop shop scheme are the same grant levels available on the individual energy grants but the list of measures is not as extensive.

On KPIs around poverty and the fuel poor, half of our €8 billion budget is going to the warmer homes scheme. As of 8 February, we have changed the targeting of this scheme. We want to prioritise those in worse need, which would be as the Deputy identified, namely, those homes with BERs of E, F and G. It is a demand-led scheme. There are quite a range of eligibility criteria. It is not totally linked to the energy performance of the home. As a result of the Government decision in February, we are now prioritising the worst categories, those of E, F and G, to bring those up ostensibly to the B2 rating. This particular programme is in transition. It started as a relatively shallow -measures energy programme and it has transitioned to the much deeper measures of the B2.