Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would echo what Deputy O'Rourke was saying. It is very depressing when I think of what the potential was and how slow we have been in grasping district heating. Dr. Connolly has more or less answered the question about the need to retrofit. While we want to get to greater efficiency, the benefit of district heating is that it is not necessary to have a house retrofitted to a certain standard as is the case with heat pumps. It is possible to get the district heating system in place and then work through retrofitting later.

I attended a district heating conference where the point was made about not having to retrofit the existing housing stock. It was also said that the benefit for new housing stock is that it reduces completion time for houses. This reduces costs as well because it is a case of doing one system rather than installing heat pumps individually. The new houses that are going up now are of a very high energy rating but they all have individual heat pumps. Is it true that opting for a district heating system rather than heat pumps can speed up the delivery of houses and reduce the cost at which they are delivered?