Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the correspondence. This is an issue that will become more prevalent in our work because the budget for retrofitting is going to increase as the climate action plan takes hold. It would be useful if we could get clarification from the Department on a number of issues, including the reallocation of €40 million of the carbon tax fund from retrofitting to the purchase of gas and diesel generators this winter. An update from the Department as to what impact that will have on the roll-out of the retrofitting programme would be helpful.

I hope the Chairman can provide some clarification on a second matter. It would be useful if the committee could get a sense of how much of each local authority's housing stock continues to be serviced by solid fuel heating systems. There has been much debate about the regulations that are coming in this week. We have a situation where some publicly owned homes have stoves as the only means of heating the water and the home. This is the low-hanging fruit in terms of what needs to be done if we are serious about reducing the use of solid fuels. I know the local authorities are not accountable to us but can we write to each of them asking for that information? The Department responds to parliamentary questions saying the information is in the hands of the local authorities.