Mr. Robert Deegan:

I agree with the Senator's point about the need to support older people through the schemes. One of the primary avenues for people to access the warmer house scheme, which is the free energy upgrade, is through the fuel allowance. The vast majority of people who receive fuel allowance are older people. This is an avenue to that particular scheme.

The Senator mentioned the degree of prioritisation between the deep retrofits and the shallower retrofits. I return to the principle of universality and ensuring that all consumer segments and housing segments are captured. The better energy home scheme allows for that. It allows individual measures to be installed by homeowners at a time that they decide. The application process is instantaneous. People apply online and are told immediately that they qualify for the grant. They can then secure a contractor to do the work who can then do the work as quickly as possible. We fully appreciate that the deep retrofit will not be available to everyone. That is why the better home scheme is there. It provides very generous grants for people who are looking to do cavity and attic insulation. They can get grants for heat pumps if they want to move on to that. There are grants for external insulation, heating controls and other measures. Generous grants are available for those kinds of one-off individual measures as opposed to just the deep retrofit.

The Senator mentioned a particular case where somebody was deemed ineligible for a scheme. Obviously, I am not familiar with the particular circumstances. I do not know whether it was one of the eligible payments under the warmer homes scheme. A number of social welfare payments are not eligible for the warmer homes scheme. There is a new online portal. There are three options - people can ring the SEAI, write to it or use the online portal. People who are comfortable doing so can use the online portal to check their eligibility for the scheme. It is a direct link-up with the Department of Social Protection. It cuts out some of the bureaucracy for people who are happy to do things online. Of course, not everyone is and so other options are available for those consumers. If they are eligible, it would be very unusual for them to be told they are not eligible. If the Senator sends us the details, we can raise the case with the SEAI or he can raise it with the SEAI directly. There is an Oireachtas address for all queries that get fast-tracked.