Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am going to focus on talking to Mr. Boland and Irish Rural Link. I think Senator Wall has spoken enough to EnergyCloud Ireland. They are two good organisations. It is great to have them at the committee. I was wondering about a couple of things. In Clare, we seem to have many community workshops happening to inform the public. Active age groups and many individuals in rural areas have been engaged with. I ran some of the workshops myself but we also have Clare Local Development Company, which has been giving workshops to the community to inform people, and Clare Community Energy Agency and community development workers all doing stuff to educate people about options for retrofitting, solar, photovoltaic and so on. Is there a lack of consistency with other local authorities and local development communities meaning that we are not seeing the same level in other counties?

On the issue of tradesmen, Mr. Boland is absolutely right. I have been meeting SOLAS. I am getting the CEO of SOLAS and the head of apprenticeships to come into Leinster House to do a presentation in the audiovisual room. I will be inviting all TDs and Senators to come in to listen and see what is happening. I think there are a few things we need to do better. We do not have enough recognition of prior learning, which makes it difficult for older people who are brilliant and have 30 or 40 years of experience in trades under their belt when they take on apprenticeships. We do not have any recognised prior learning for someone who has been a civil engineer for years. He has to go back to start at square one, like a 15-year-old who does not have a junior certificate, to become a carpenter. That is also an issue.

We are trying to build many houses and retrofit the significant housing stock. It has to be said that many houses were badly built. The reason there were those statistics about how many houses in rural Ireland are not fit for purpose is that we built so many houses badly in the past. It is not because the retrofit programme is not working. It is just that the retrofit programme is in huge demand because it is working. Anybody who gets it is really happy with it. The 80% grant for insulation in the attics and pumping the walls has become very successful because it is a low-cost measure that has worked for many people.

I have also been working on this issue that we have in rural areas where there are stone houses. They are not designed to be retrofitted in the same way that block houses are. Something will hopefully be launched in the next few months relating to traditional crafts such as lime plastering. How does one insulate and retrofit old stone cottages? Much work has been done on that. That will help people. I have had old people come to me who live in stone cottages and have been told they cannot be retrofitted, which is not good enough. I am with Mr. Boland on that. It is good to see rural broadband being rolled out. Some good things have been happening.

The windfall tax is higher than we expected. That will go straight into fuel allowance, which we have increased a few times in the last couple of years too, which is good. It is worrying to hear about the number of people who are still relying on open fires. That is a significant health issue for them personally. That is tricky because people with oil burners can change to air to water systems much more easily than someone who just has an open fire. Those will become numbered, I think. The new green loan that is coming out at the end of March will be a game-changer too because it will make retrofitting affordable for people.

It is good that social housing stock is being retrofitted for free. In Clare, the local authority is doing clusters of social housing. It did a whole housing estate in Shannon, for instance, and another in Ennis, which was done as a cluster project. I am not sure what happens in other counties. It sounded like Deputy Ó Laoghaire was suggesting they would only do one or two. For me, the thing is consistency. We do not seem to have consistency in local authorities, no matter how the fund is coming down at a national level. It seems to be very hit and miss depending on which council one happens to live in. Maybe, as TDs and Senators, we could look at a standard expectation or target from each local authority so that we might have a uniform, constant, good quality implementation of funding for retrofitting and many other things too.

Rural Link's bus transport has been going well. I would like to hear a bit about that from Mr. Boland. I see the percentages are in there. We have a fivefold or sixfold improvement in Clare, for example. There are a few issues with bus stops and shelters.

Overall, the retrofit programme was not in existence three and a half years ago. The fact that it is in huge demand which we cannot keep up with is telling of how good the programme is, because the waiting lists are long. There was no retrofit programme three and a half years ago, so at least we have one now, and houses are being retrofitted. I was reared in a really damp house, going into school in a wet uniform. I can relate to the issue of damp houses. It is good to see that we are finally moving away from that and making better efforts. I thank Mr. Boland for his work. What Rural Link does is really important. It constantly reminds us of the issues which are possibly unique to rural Ireland.