Ms Laura McDonnell:

Thanks for the questions. This has been a very popular programme with Clúid residents. Energy poverty is more closely associated with social housing because of lower income in that area. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, sometimes people might not see the benefit of the changeover in these energy initiatives. We rolled it out to 338 households, and 152 are actively using it at the moment. They saw the benefit of 115 nights, as the chairman pointed out, and it is having a huge impact on their lives. The issue is that there is a huge challenge in terms of energy bills for our residents. Some are citing bills of around €100 per week. They simply do not have that money so some are debt to energy providers. They are making choices about where they spend their money, deciding whether they can afford to heat their homes. They cannot afford to heat them every night. They have to make choices about when they will have hot water and heat in their homes.

I will give the example of two particular residents we spoke to about how their lives have changed with it. Sharon Reville, one of our residents who lives in Clondalkin is very cautious about how she utilises energy in her home. She goes around turning off lights, makes sure she is not heating unoccupied rooms and unplugs devices to make sure they are not using energy. The impact the EnergyCloud has had on her life has been phenomenal. The benefit is that she can schedule when she is going to clean her house, have showers, and so on. It has given her peace of mind and made her life just a bit more comfortable. It has had a huge impact for her. Another resident, Obi Okasi, was gracious enough to allow me into her home to have a conversation about the impact the EnergyCloud has had on her life. She said it has been fantastic in terms of making it more affordable to clean and heat her home. The rising cost of food and energy has been very difficult to manage but what Obi does now is look out the window, check the weather forecast, make sure there is wind on the way and then she can plan her chores and cleaning around that. We have heard from a number of residents about storm or wind chasing whereby they are checking the weather forecast and planning their chores around that. It is of major benefit to them because it is making it more affordable.

Other nice stories that we hear include the fact that when they have a free tank of hot water, they are able to have a bath. Many of us in this room would think that it is really simple and something we could do every day but it is not. It is a real luxury for the people in our homes in Clúid to actually be able to have a bath. There are functional benefits in terms of chores and cleaning but there are also quality of life benefits. It has had a huge impact.