Ms Michelle Murphy:

Credit union loans could potentially be an answer for a particular cohort of households but one must consider their capacity to take on and repay additional debt, the timeframe for repaying it and whether there would be a State guarantee for such a scheme. It has the potential to play a role for households, however.

On making retrofitting attractive to households, there may be unforeseen costs for households. One additional cost would be having to move out during the process if additional work needs to be done inside the home once the retrofit is complete. There may be other supports available for households but that is where the community energy adviser role comes in. It is to make the households aware of what additional supports are available. Another issue is addressing how this could be done in a more co-ordinated manner.

On arrears, the additional payments are in place but looking at arrears overall, we also need to examine income adequacy and how often or regularly households are falling into arrears and their capacity to meet the arrears repayments. As the Society of St. Vincent de Paul pointed out, that is an additional bill so then there is a question of what else these households are cutting back on in order to meet arrears repayments.