Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the witnesses for coming in and I thank the Chairman for allowing me to make my contribution early. I appreciate what the witnesses are trying to do to address climate change.

I have been in the construction trade all of my life. When this policy on the SEAI grants was launched by the Minister, Deputy Ryan, the figures were prepared in October and based on the retrofit of a house costing €50,000. At that time, a grant of €23,500 was available. Since then there has been a 38% increase in the cost of materials and labour, which means the value of the grant has fallen to €2,500 based on the €50,000 cost when the grants were launched. In other words, the grant has been absorbed by the increase in the cost of materials and labour. The cost then goes back to the home owner again.

Most of the retrofits have been done on a city rather than county basis. This comes down to labour, numbers and business. If I can get ten houses in a row, it will be viable for me to do those houses and it becomes a business. People are entitled to do that. That becomes a problem, however, when it is a one-off retrofit because there are transport and labour costs and the cost of getting labour to the site. It is more costly to retrofit a house in the countryside.

Existing planning permissions allow only one heat energy source, for example, solar panels or a heat pump, to be installed. I am aware that this is changing.

I want people to change to better heated homes but I also want to make it affordable for them. At the moment, speaking as a person in construction, the workforce is not available.

I asked the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, to introduce a provision for early leavers, those who would like to leave school early. I asked that students in fifth year or transition year doing the leaving certificate applied could doe one base year of an apprenticeship in fifth or sixth year. This would allow them to get on the ladder before they leave school. It would encourage students to stay in school and get a basic education, while giving them the skills they will need when they leave school because they will have already started an apprenticeship. It would also help with the retrofitting of houses into the future.

If I want to have my windows or insulation upgraded, there is a preliminary cost when one goes through the SEAI. Some contractors are coming out and putting in the preliminary costs on each item that they price. It is not based on the whole house. If someone tells a contractor they want external insulation, there will be a preliminary cost involved in that work, which is a base cost on SEAI. If that person comes back to the contractor and says they want the attic done as well, a preliminary cost will also be raised for that work. There should be just one preliminary cost for the whole house. Otherwise, all of the funding goes into preliminary costs.

We need to sell a package. If we can sell a package with one preliminary cost, it will mean we can have the work done cheaper because the preliminary start-up costs on any building cover insurance, scaffolding or whatever else is needed. If we can give a package where people can do the whole retrofit with one preliminary cost, it would mean one part of the house would be done at a cost that would otherwise be eaten up in fees. That is what we need to look at.

There are companies doing one thing at a time. They are telling people to do one thing now and this will help them on their way. Getting as much done as possible with one preliminary cost should be encouraged. That is one issue I want addressed because I have seen this practice everywhere.

I know the companies have been given a rate so they can train up people on BER, which is a good way of doing it and it helps to upskill people, especially younger people who have come out of college and want to do this. It is a good way forward.

The main thing we want is to get people to upgrade the energy in their houses. At the moment, there are still grants available for oil burners through SEAI grants, which I welcome. If someone has an old burner that is not burning efficiently, until they can get their house retrofitted, at least they have something to bring down the emissions within the house.

From the point of view of total tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per dwelling over ten years, kerosene is 68 tonnes, air source heat pump is 53 tonnes, wood pellets is 15 tonnes, bioliquid blend is 52 tonnes, bioliquid blend B50K is 40 tonnes and pure bioliquid is 10 tonnes. These are figures on energy ratings that point us to what we can do to improve houses even if they are on different systems.

Outside of the city areas, we have a big problem with ESB because we get knocked out maybe two or three times a year. If people do not have ESB and are completely reliant on heat pumps or solar, how do they heat their house? Something has to run the pumps so how do we address that going forward?