Ms Debbie Byrne:

I think the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the IPU executive and us. There was talk, I think, of somebody from the Department of Finance being there, but I have not seen the names.

I literally only got that into my inbox last night, so we can confirm that.

In terms of Government services, the outstanding memo still needs to be published out of the last round of engagement in terms of the old approach where all of the Secretaries General came together and looked at what their respective Departments could provide. I have not seen that memo. My understanding is that not too much has come out of it. At the IPU conference two weeks ago, the Minister for Social Protection stated that she and her officials were looking at what social welfare services could be provided. Anywhere there is paper, there must be a role for the post office. For example, social welfare recipients must notify the Department of Social Protection when they go on holiday. Why can this not be done at the post office counter? The Minister is working with her officials to look at that.

On the new approach, the digital framework document has been published. There is also a reference in the programme for Government to reform and local government. Having got the funding piece over the line, my next step is to stand back and ask how we approach that. We will need some kind of committee obviously with our own Department at the heart of it but also perhaps work with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of the Taoiseach because for something to be a whole-of-government approach, and the Deputy will know better than I do, those two Departments will probably have to have some skin in the game in terms of directing that because it crosses local government. If you are doing something in post offices, you are replacing services provided elsewhere, etc. My objective this summer is to plan the approach with a view to kicking it off in September.

When we launched the green hub in the October before the onset of Covid, we were ahead of the curve. What consumers were telling us at the time was that it was all very complicated. For example, if they wanted to do up their house, they had to go to the SEAI website and all the rest of it and bring all the information together themselves. What we did was simplify the process and bring everything into the green hub, which is a portal on the An Post website. We brought together and simplified some of the SEAI information. We then plugged in SSE Airtricity as a provider. Consumers can book an appointment where an SSE Airtricity evaluator will visit their home, assess it and see what jobs need to be done. During Covid, we did some assessments remotely with an iPad, which worked quite well, so now we give people the option of availing of both routes. Consumers get an estimate and a shopping list so they can decide to go the whole hog in terms of a deep retrofit or cherry pick off of that. In conjunction with the European Investment Bank, we launched a green loan, which is still has the lowest rate in the marketplace for green financing. We would like to scale that, and we have been talking to other providers about coming on board in order that we have partners in addition to SSE Airtricity.

The SEAI came out with its one-stop-shop arrangement at the beginning of the year. We have had to stand back a bit and see where we can play a role. It is a really good example where we invested a lot of time and energy. We are very close to the consumer and are outside the tent on this, which is very frustrating because I think we could help Government accelerate that. We are part of Government but we are not so I think we can do more in that space. Again, I would ask that when policy things like this happen, people would ask about the position of An Post, because, for the minute, we probably have to re-evaluate our strategy in light of that. We are in discussions with SEAI to see whether there is a role for us. We have invested in the digital infrastructure and could be the front end of that and bring SSE Airtricity in through the Government route. Why does the Government need to replicate and spend money again creating a digital front end for consumers?