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

I have a few questions and comments relating to the evidence that has been given this morning. On a broader issue, all members are visiting quite a lot of constituents in person at the moment, as the witnesses have heard. There is an opportunity here for the SEAI to put together a leaflet on some of the simple measures that could be taken to reduce energy costs in homes, as well as to raise awareness of the various grant schemes available and the associated timelines. I am sure there are many Members of the Houses and local authority members throughout the country who would be willing to distribute those leaflets as they visit homes in the next 12 months. There is an opportunity here for the SEAI to have leaflets delivered door to door and an explanation provided. That may be something the SEAI would like to explore to increase awareness.

As regards the warmer homes scheme, we all understand there is a backlog in completing the works and there is a ramp-up in that regard. At the current rate of 6,000 homes a year, however, it will take 65 years to retrofit the homes of the people in receipt of the fuel allowance. That is way beyond any of the targets that have been set. There must be a significant ramp-up in that regard. One of the most frustrating comments that we, as public representatives, are receiving is that people are waiting 12 months - they previously had to wait up to 18 months - for someone to tell them they will not get the grant. It would be far better if that process were expedited. It would tell people whether the work will be carried out, but it also should be tied into carrying out shallow measures on those properties because these are people in fuel poverty. They should not have to wait 12 months to learn what they can or cannot do. The benefit for the SEAI in this regard is that if there are more people in the pipeline for works to be carried out, it will be far more cost-effective in terms of clustering those homes. If there are 100 homes in a large traditional local authority housing estate that can be clustered together, it will be far cheaper for the contractor to go in and maybe do the local authority work as well as the warmer homes work as all the houses are pretty much the same. It could reduce costs, particularly for local authorities. The big problem I am experiencing in the context of the local authorities' works is that they are paying a premium because they are relatively small jobs. I have seen prices for closing up the chimney in a house that are more than it would cost to insulate the house. That should not be the case. There is a way to get more bang for your buck, namely, to drive efficiencies by serving homes quicker and turning that around. A small investment will give a significant saving. I would like the SEAI to consider that.

I also think it would be important to raise awareness regarding some of the bottlenecks. Dr. Byrne and I had a conversation about this last year. He made the point that the reason many attics have not been insulated to date is because people have been using them for storage. Making people aware that they need to remove what is stored in their attics might lead to them going about that task and decluttering. Are there other bottlenecks that mean people are reluctant to proceed with various measures? Can we make them aware of these so they can address these issues rather than turning down the grant or the retrofit programme? This, in itself, would be positive.

The SEAI does a substantial amount of research and not just in terms of its own measures. I know its representatives are dealing with the retrofit end of things here, so I do not expect them to be able to answer me now but I would like them to come back to me with information later. The evidence we received today, and previously, from representatives of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has continually highlighted the problem with home heating oil. There is no alternative now to home heating oil other than going for a deep retrofit and putting in a heat pump. Surely to God there must be some bright spark out there who will come forward with some other measure in relation to this aspect. I know there are challenges with using hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO, for home heating compared to transport, but surely there must be options and solutions out there not involving heat pumps, which cost a lot of money and take time to install, rather than locking people into using oil-fired central heating systems for another generation. I ask the SEAI to look at this matter.

On the issue of research, as I said earlier, I was at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition last week. I had a conversation with Annamarie Mullan, Aideen Derwin and Bláthín Moran, three young ladies from Our Lady's Bower secondary school in Athlone, who were looking at the issue of mould growth in homes. They were pointing out that the single biggest problem in relation to mould growth in homes is in rented properties, including student and other private rented accommodation. They pointed out to me the health impact of this mould growth and had an article from the Irish Independent concerning mould being a silent killer in Irish homes today. The conclusion of their research was that conditions with low temperatures and high humidity were the biggest causal factor in mould growth in a home and that increasing heat in a bedroom and improving the ventilation significantly reduced the incidence of such mould growth.

Clearly, there is a major health implication here with regard to these issues. The Leas-Chathaoirleach touched on this issue of health earlier. I was very surprised last week with the ESRI commentary on the national development plan. Professor Alan Barrett spoke on the radio about perhaps reducing the amount of money going into retrofitting in a context where we had to prioritise things in terms of climate change and suggested that rolling out electric vehicles, from a climate perspective, might be a better solution. The ESRI then went on to talk in its commentary about the challenges in relation to our health service, the overcrowding there, and the impact in relation to nursing homes.

There is a lack of joined-up thinking here. Mr. Randles flagged earlier that when I was the Minister in this area we commissioned the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to look at a pilot we developed in Dublin that explored the health impact of carrying out retrofits. At that stage, nearly a decade ago now, we could clearly see that there were not the energy savings to be found in respect of such retrofitting but that the health outcomes were significant. One in five children in Ireland suffers from asthma.

One in 13 adults in Ireland has COPD. While COPD accounts for 6% of admissions to hospitals, its treatment takes up 12% of beds. We found that retrofitting homes resulted in people, children and adults, getting sick less, attending the GP less and attending hospital less. When people were treated in hospital, they were discharged far faster and back to their own homes rather than into step-down facilities, as well as being prescribed few medicines. The solution, then, for the ESRI in terms of hospital overcrowding, and we are again in a crisis now with people on trolleys around the country, is actually to put investment into retrofitting homes.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has produced its own research in respect of the mental health aspect in this regard and yet we seem to be ignoring it. Even the ESRI's research ignores it, as I said. It has done specific research on the outcomes of retrofitting homes and the barriers in terms of taking up such programmes and spoken about the positive impact of such work, but the institute has never referenced health. In the evidence we heard this morning, reference was made to it just at the very end. There seems to be a lack of connectivity in this regard. It is again something that the SEAI, through its research team, perhaps working with young people like those in Our Lady's Bower secondary school, could develop the evidence on, take on board the evidence we have already paid for from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and make the medical case for investment in this retrofitting area. I say this because I would be afraid that if the narrative gets out there that we would be better off investing in electric vehicles rather than retrofitting homes we will see a fall-off in investment at a time when we actually need to be prioritising such investment, especially for energy-poor families. I ask the SEAI to look at this issue.

One of the other things the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has flagged with us is that many homes are too big, especially for older people, and costly to heat. In fact, Eurostat has told us that 92% of older people are living in homes that are too big for them. We are in a perverse situation in this State now where we have a huge housing crisis and at the same time older people are living in homes that are far too big for them. The ESRI is telling us we have a challenge in terms of building homes because of the bottleneck in our economy. Would it not make far more sense to be building a number of one- and two-bedroom bungalow homes on grey sites near town and village centres so older people could move from their big houses in rural areas or in villages and towns into these smaller homes, close to existing services, thereby releasing those three- and four-bedroom houses to families? This would solve a problem in terms of the housing situation and also deal with a fuel poverty situation. It would also be an awful lot easier and quicker to build two-bedroom houses than the family houses and apartments needed. In fact, with the current building technology it is possible for many of these homes to be built off-site.

Is there an opportunity for the SEAI to get involved in looking, through its research division, at some of the broader aspects of how we can link up some of these win-win situations to help address what is a fuel poverty issue and also a health crisis and a housing crisis and get a win-win across the board in this regard? I do not expect an answer to this query this morning because I know the witnesses with us deal with a different aspect of the SEAI's operations. I do think, though, that there is an opportunity here to progress some of these issues as well.

Turning more to the issue of retrofitting, one in four people in Ireland cannot afford to heat their homes adequately now.

That is not acceptable. Not all of those people are in receipt of social welfare. We know that the retrofitting targets were targeted and announced to cover 50% of the cost. In his evidence this morning, Dr. Byrne gave a practical example where the grant covered only one third of the cost. Clearly because building and material costs have gone up, the grant has effectively reduced. What is happening to ensure the grant is reflective of what was originally announced as a 50% grant? The people who are being disadvantaged are the people who will have to borrow to do this work. They are the ones who cannot afford it. For people who are cash rich and put the investment in, whether the grant is 50% or 30% will not be a factor. They are not the people who are in fuel poverty. Those who are in fuel poverty are the ones who are caught and the difference between a 30% grant and 50% grant is the difference between carrying out this work and not carrying it out. What progress is being made on going back to the 50% grant, which was the initial objective behind this scheme? Those are the questions I have.

The target is to have 500,000 homes retrofitted between now and 2030. As Dr. Byrne said in his evidence, that will ramp up over time. It is a big challenge and there is no doubt about that. It is a big ask to reach half a million homes by 2030. On average, approximately 12% or 13% of those homes come under the warmer homes scheme. People in fuel poverty are in receipt of the fuel allowance or other ancillary supports. Are there any plans to increase the proportion of homes that will be retrofitted to target those who are fuel poor rather than the population as a whole? We do not want households that are fuel poor to make up only 65,000-odd of the retrofit scheme. We want them to make up a far greater percentage of the overall number of homes that are retrofitted. That is what this committee wants to happen. It is what the Society of St. Vincent de Paul needs to happen if we are going to address, in real and practical terms, the challenges we have regarding fuel poverty.