Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. Mr. Mullins started off by talking about 550,000 households in energy poverty. The figure our guests gave is that 75,000 now have EnergyCloud to help them with that. How long would it take to reach in the region of 550,000, particularly in light of the organisation's current outlays, the constraints in relation to personnel, etc.? If it is 75,000 since 2021, how quickly could we get to 550,000 in order to help everybody? It is an absolutely brilliant scheme, as other speakers have said. The emphasis has been on housing, but I am dealing a lot with sports clubs at the moment and the cost of energy for them, environmental issues arising and so on. I am hoping EnergyCloud is looking at something like that because, obviously, hot water, showering, etc., are very important to sports clubs.

An issue that has been raised by a couple of contributors is education. This is something I have problems with in the context of filling in forms and other basic necessities. It is about simplifying the whole thing. Mr. Mullins is right about people leaving their immersion heaters on. We all came across that as we grew up. Is that as simple as it can be for everybody in order to ensure maximum benefit for everybody? That an education aspect is included with this is paramount to its success, and it already has been a success.

On Cluíd Housing and to be parochial as well, I have a question about turnkey sites where the body is taking over from a builder. Will the people moving in there see the benefit from EnergyCloud before they move in or will it be retrofitted after they arrive? In my home town of Athy, there is a Cluíd Housing scheme just about ready to go. Perhaps I could get an answer on that and on turnkey sites.

I thank Mr. Boland for all the work he and his organisation do. I am dealing with the just transition. In that context, there is a retrofit programme whereby eight counties benefited to the tune of €20 million. Some 120 units in my county benefited, but that is only a drop in the ocean in the context of what needs to be done in this regard for those who live in just transition areas. Has Mr. Boland come across that? I am going to use the old chestnut of the grant for upgrading windows and doors. We have spoken about those aged over 66, but I come across daily those who are aged under 66, especially in rural areas, whose windows are 30 or 40 years old. We still cannot give them the grant to ensure that they can have some sort of comfort. Mr. Boland spoke about a specific grant for rural areas. I would totally support that because the challenges that face many rural dwellers, especially in one-off houses, is they are very hard to get to and there are no synergies stemming from the amount that can be done together. We need to look at this differently from a different point of view and look at retrofitting of, say, one-off houses or rural house that we need to improve and not leave them to sit alone as many have over many years.