Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentations. I will start with the SEAI. Will its representatives outline the work it does under the warmer homes scheme? The reason I am asking is that I will then have a question for the SVP on the work it does not do on the very bad houses.

The second issue I would like to address in a little bit more detail is that of the delays between applying for the warmer homes scheme and getting the work done. From my experience in my office, these delays have become very long. One of the things I find about people is that, although they might put something off for years, when they get around to applying, it is awfully important for their confidence to get the thing done in a reasonable time. What can be done to speed up this process?

My third question is a technical question. I understand there is some problem in the general retrofit scheme, which operates irrespective of income, with stone houses and that this is causing problems in providing insulation. There is sometimes an unwillingness to pay retrofitting grants for stone-built houses. There is still a large number of these in the countryside. They are good houses and very solid. Will the SEAI address that issue?

When the SEAI grants came out in the noughties, there was a top-up for those on the islands because it costs 30% more to do anything on an island. I will explain why. If you are getting anything onto an island, you pay the transport we all pay to get it to the port, rather than to your home. It then has to be loaded onto the boat and you have to pay a transport fee to get it quayside. That cost is not normally the worst because those boats are subsidised but, when you get it quayside on the other side, you then have to get another transporter, who is paying all the extra diesel costs and so on that must be paid on an island, to bring it to you. There are therefore two land hauls and one sea haul. There was a top-up grant. When Deputy Ryan was Minister previously, up until 2011, he gave a top-up grant for those on the islands but that is not available now. It seems slightly unfair.

Does the SEAI encounter many houses belonging to people under 65 or 66 years of age that need more basic work than retrofitting done? I am talking about draughty windows and doors, the fabric of the building and bad roofs. This is where I come to the SVP. Does the society agree that there is a need for what is now called the housing aid for older people, HAOP, grant to be extended to younger people, particularly in rural Ireland but also in the older parts of urban areas, where there is a big stock of houses in which people under the age of 66 are living, perhaps having inherited them, and which are very poor thermally and structurally? As I have said, I am talking about draughty doors and windows and all of the basic things that need to be done before you can start doing the thermal work on a house. I am interested in the interlinking there.

I am very interested in what Dr. Keilthy said about rented accommodation. It is a very sensible idea.

I would like the witnesses' view on what a long lease is. Double jeopardy was mentioned - that solving one problem could cause another, by taking houses off the market. A long lease was mentioned. Every house that is done up is a house done up because it is presumed that someone continues to live in it, even if the landlord takes it back. Are we taking about three years or five years? If it is too long it will have an inhibitive effect. We always have to take the risk that somebody might abuse a scheme slightly. On the other hand, it might make it attractive to a larger number of genuine people. If we eliminate any possibility of abuse in a scheme it normally makes the scheme so unworkable and so unattractive that nobody gets in. Many of us have found politically in the last ten years that schemes are so watertight that even the genuine people are not getting in. I would always reckon, as was pointed out, that we have to be practical, but we need to get some sense of where we are going.

This is not an SEAI question. Did the Society of St. Vincent de Paul find that with the lump sums paid this year and last year, the fuel allowance, plus the extra one-off payments, help people in the crucial times of the year? In other words, do the witnesses favour us continuing with lump sum payments as opposed to spreading a higher payment out over the season? We can make sure people get the money at the target time of the year. January in particular tends to be colder than December. I would be interested in that. It is not part of retrofitting or whatever, but I would be interested in getting that feedback.