Mr. Robert Deegan:

On grants for windows and doors, these are available under the national home energy upgrade scheme, which is the deep retrofit. That is part of a package, as opposed to an individual grant. It is also available under the warmer homes scheme in certain circumstances. That is where insulation measures are being put in place and there is only single glazing in the home prior to the works. It is not available as an individual grant currently. The measures that are supported are the most cost-effective measures in terms of bang for buck. Wall insulation measures, as opposed to windows and doors, have been the focus. We could spend a great deal of our budget and not get as good a return on it. Were we to make windows and door grants available, we would be inundated with requests for them. That would be to the detriment of installing wall and attic measures. They are the most cost-effective measures. That is why they are the focus for the individual grants.

The Senator mentioned the local authority heat pumps. Obviously that is a matter for the Department of housing but my understanding is that the heat pumps will only be installed in homes that are suitable for a heat pump. We can certainly feed it back to colleagues in the Department of housing but it might best to discuss it with them. We do not have any oversight of the local authority schemes in terms of inspections or anything like that. Unfortunately, I cannot help the Senator on that front today.

On the waiting list for homes, which was the final question, there have been significant improvements in the waiting lists under the warmer homes scheme from 26 months in 2022 to 20 months last year. That was driven by a number of measures. There were enhanced staffing allocations for the SEAI to increase its capacity to oversee matters. There were supports for supply chain and more cash flowing, which allowed the companies to grow and to take on bigger allocations. There was also the overall allocation itself which as I mentioned earlier, increased from €40 million in 2019 to €208 million this year. There is also a new tender. The SEAI has a panel of contractors that carry out works under the warmer homes scheme. The recent tender process was for €700 million ex VAT for the next four years. That resulted in 36 contractors being appointed. That is seven more than was previously the case. That will expand the capacity of the scheme. In addition to that, as much as is available through the tendering rules and procurement rules, those contractors can then subcontract to other contractors to ensure that the maximum supply can be delivered.

To give an idea of the expenditure, last year it was €157.4 million. That is a significant increase in expenditure. Output was 5,900 houses which is a 33% increase on 2022 numbers. While the waiting list reduced last year, I do not want to give false comfort on that, as demand for this scheme is huge. A number of factors influence that. There is much greater awareness of the scheme and of the importance of energy efficiency. However, we are also making the retrofits much better, which means they are much more attractive to the homeowners. I mentioned a figure in my opening statement that in 2015 the average upgrade was worth €2,600. The average grant last year was worth €24,000. That is only likely to increase as more of those houses trigger the building regulations. Demand is very high. We had 12,000 applications last year. There is a real challenge there but the main challenge we have is the supply chain's capacity to deliver more houses and the fact that demand outstrips supply at the moment. There has been a concerted effort to address these waiting lists. Good progress was made last year.