Mr. Robert Deegan:

My understanding of the local authority scheme is that it costs about €36,000 per unit, but some units will cost more and some will cost less. That allows the authority at local level to get a balance that means it stays within its budget. That is my understanding of how it works.

Our involvement with the Department of housing is an ongoing conversation. We obviously encourage the retrofitting of the maximum number of local authority units. Much of that is driven by the climate action plan commitment to retrofit 30,000 houses per year until the end of the decade. That will a subset of the overall number of upgrades that needs to be done, for which the target is 500,000 houses. It is ongoing. Our responsibilities cross over in a number of ways, as I mentioned, in terms of European directives, the building regulations and the terms of the local authority roll-out. Some of our schemes like the community energy grant scheme can also, in certain conditions and with the approval of the local authority and the Department of housing, include a small number of local authority units within community projects. Maybe they would not say it, but we would say it is a good relationship. It is a productive relationship that has seen good results in recent years. However, as with everything else related to this subject, there is always room for more to be done because there is such a need.