Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is definitely an issue with Dublin City Council, where the proportion of local authority housing is significantly higher than in other local authorities. Nevertheless, the drawdown by local authorities is an issue not for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul but for us. We all have colleagues on local authorities, and the responsibility is on us to provide leadership and ensure that funding will be drawn down by every local authority.

We must also ensure they do not implement a policy of penalising people who are already in financial difficulty and in arrears on their rents by refusing to provide them with the retrofits of their homes, which historically has been the case. People who were already in financial debt were further penalised. Their neighbours' homes were insulated and their homes were left to the end of the list. That was not an effective policy either.

In terms of drawing on the submission and looking at where we go from here, I note the evidence we have heard today, pointing out that we have an estimated 337,000 people who cannot afford to heat their homes adequately. We are talking about the population of Cork city, Limerick city, Galway city and Dún Laoghaire saying they cannot afford to keep their homes warm at the moment. It is a phenomenal number of people. It is an issue that needs to be urgently addressed. The committee will write to the Minister, asking her to expedite the enactment of the legislation that has been committed to by Government. It is imperative that happens.

Second, this committee will write to our colleagues on the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action, to which the regulator is accountable, asking it to bring the regulator in and to invite representatives from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to attend that hearing to address specifically the issues relating to prepay gas meters and the need for a new customer protection strategy to be put in place. These are not issues for the Minister; they are issues for the relevant Oireachtas committee. We will write to the committee requesting that it brings representatives of Society of St. Vincent de Paul in, along with the regulator, to look at these specific issues and the associated issues regarding smart metering as a matter of urgency. I think it requires that level of priority at the moment.

I think the proposal on the community energy advisers is a very constructive one. It could be dealt with in a number of ways, including through the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ryan, or through the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys. We will take the proposal up with both Ministers and see if an effective scheme can be put in place to address this particular issue, either through the SEAI or through some of the community employment and Tús schemes. It is an issue that needs to be addressed now. We cannot wait until it becomes a big issue again in the run-in to next winter.

I thank Society of St. Vincent de Paul in particular for taking the time to put this report together. We look forward to its submission regarding the examples from the UK on how the community energy adviser system works. We will use that as part of our submission to both Ministers. I thank the witnesses for their time today.