Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her comments. I agree with her. This is a very powerful committee because it is very democratic. From our perspective, when we engage with the Department of Finance, it is very open in its responses. We welcome the amount of work that the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, and his team have put into this. As I said in response to the Cathaoirleach's question, from the Government's perspective, there is an urgency to resolving these issues.

The Deputy raised a number of points regarding skills and this is something we are working with the Heritage Council on. If thatchers have a waiting list of five years for projects, it suggests there are probably not enough skilled professionals working in the area. We need to work on that. Our departmental working group is working on a range of those issues, including the skill set, the growing of the materials in Ireland, insurance and other issues. We will see the fire safety recommendations come forward from the report at the end of the month. If simple measures can be implemented in a house that will reduce the risk of fire by 50% or 60%, then the premiums should reflect that. The reduction in premiums should reflect the mitigation and reduction of risk in houses. It is to be hoped that will all become clear in the next number of weeks when the report's recommendations are published. On the other element around the grants, as I said, we are ensuring that those grants are supportive for the maintenance and upkeep of those houses.

I will say again that we want to do all we can to ensure that we do not just stop losing these houses. We all love looking at them and taking photographs of them but they represent a burden - that is the word I use - on the property owners at times. It is critically important that we stop losing these houses and actually start increasing the numbers of them in Ireland. That is where we are determined to work collectively across Government to address the issues.