Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests. I will start off on a positive note. The constituency I represent, Cork North-Central, has seen a couple of retrofitting projects over recent years, in Wolfe Tone Street, Allen Square and Harbour View Road, where my father lives and where I come from, in Knocknaheeny, as part of the regeneration plan. People who live in Wolfe Tone Street and Allen Square have stated they have seen a 50% reduction in their energy bills, with a much better quality of life, better heating, constant hot water and solar panels on the roofs. There has been overwhelming positivity from the retrofitting. In the case of my father's house, in Harbour View Road, the entire road was retrofitted. This ties in to the point that was made earlier about joined-up thinking. The majority of the houses in this Knocknaheeny social housing estate, or about 60%, are privately owned.

They were able to manage both the social and private housing together so that virtually everyone was done. One or two decided not to do it, which was their choice. It was a real success story. The problem I have is that there are 10,500 social houses in Cork city alone. At the rate that retrofitting is going on in Cork, it will be decades before the houses are retrofitted.

What we have now is a retrofitting plan that seems to work. Originally, the first set of retrofitting was done in Knocknaheeny under the regeneration plan perhaps ten or 15 years ago. Those houses need to be retrofitted again because the quality and standard of the work was just not up to scratch. At least we have something now that we know is working. However, from a funding point of view, two years ago, Churchfield, an area in my constituency of Cork, was to be retrofitted. It is to be done now this year. I know Covid has caused delays, but it has passed three years. It got the go-ahead three years ago. It takes too much time to get these up and running. I have serious concerns whether the resources are in place. There are many promises around retrofitting. I do not believe the Government is delivering the funding to the SEAI or the local authorities to deliver the amount of retrofitting that needs to be done. That is just the first part. I will come in again. Does Mr. Meally have any thoughts on that?