Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late as I had commitments in the Dáil Chamber. I have questions from the two ends of this transaction. The first concerns the roll-out of the NBP. In fairness to National Broadband Ireland, it is clear with its information. We had extensive engagement with the company over the Covid period at this committee. It has good interfaces on its website for members and others. However, it is slow progress. In my county, there have been 886 connections. There are more homes passed than that, but that is 886 connections out of 22,000. We need a significant ramp-up. Whatever way it is cut up, it is a significant backloading of works. I am interested in the impact of this transaction on that work programme. There was also a five-year delay, out to seven years, which they were trying to rein back in and shave some time off the back end of the NBP.

Is there any prospect of doing that?

Specifically there is the reallocation of funds, on areas that I would see as really important: A8 - just transition is €3.1 million; D7 - the emergency alert system, €2.9 million; and C6 - waste management programmes is €10.8 million. Tomorrow, the climate committee will deal with the welcome energy credit and the funding for that but many people who are getting that energy credit will have the heat going through their roofs and out their walls because they have not been retrofitted and their homes are not well insulated. Last week, the Committee on Public Accounts heard about a very significant underspend in retrofitting. Here we can find €27.7 million in residential and community retrofit. Can the Minister reflect on what is happening in that space? I think we all know the work is desperately needed and there is huge public demand. The Minister has heard from Deputy Kenny and myself repeatedly on scheme design. How do we find ourselves in a situation where we can be in a position to reallocate funds of that scale? What under-assessment was made? Why is it that we are not in a position to deliver on committed expenditure?