Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone who has come in. This is the first time I have grappled with the concept behind EnergyCloud. I have heard of it, but was not too aware of how it operates. To clarify, when the wind picks up this excess wind energy, that can be siphoned off to people who are linked into EnergyCloud. People can switch off their immersions and get free electricity to heat their immersions. It was then said that at that point people will also gain on that for other chores, including the electricity used for hoovering, washing clothes, cooking and all those type of things. Is that it? Is electricity free at that point for those chores? It was said that was what it meant for people, such as Obi Okasi, for showering or for other chores and cleaning. However, I do not find that practical for people with a young family, who are going to work and doing all these type of things, and are told that they should do all their chores and cleaning at a particular point in time. From the point of view of family life, it is a hard thing to do that. Will the representatives expand on that a little to clarify it?

Mr. Mullins said that the batteries were 300 MW. He said his company provided the batteries. Will he clarify that?

I thank Mr. Boland. I know he is coming from the public banking campaign. As was highlighted in the Irish Rural Link report, the key is fairness and equity. Many people on low incomes are paying their carbon tax but are not seeing the benefit of it. They are then seeing other people who can afford it getting retrofitting done on the back of that carbon tax. There has to be fairness and, as Mr. Boland said, it has to be targeted at those 400,000 homes that are not fit for purpose and the 100,000 homes that are absolutely not fit for purpose. It is about how it is done. The committee should certainly look at some specific separate funding, or a certain type of funding, which would link in with those houses. For a 65-year-old to invest in retrofitting in his or her home, if he or she gets a grant of €30,000, it is a lot of money to take on and pay back at that age. It has to be looked at very seriously to see how that can be done.

I come back to the point about the 36 contractors available for the fully funded warmer home grant schemes. I am of the opinion we should have more of an umbrella public retrofitting scheme and, underneath that, all the different contractors could be pulled in. People could even be directly employed in a State company or whatever to be able to direct all this because it is very piecemeal. Retrofitting is one of the key areas where, if people in Ireland saw it being done effectively, they would know that the Government, or whoever is in charge of implementing this, is serious about our climate. People would be very convinced about playing a role in it. That is definitely where it comes from.

Those were the main points I wanted to come in on. The credit unions can play a more positive role in this through being able to access money from the European Investment Bank. That is another area the committee will have to delve into a lot more and recommend highly.