Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

EnergyCloud's restriction is the capital moneys to install the existing analogue technology, or a bit of innovation through the SEAI, to actually commission a piece of research to provide the software, based on the existing smart meters we are putting in, to be able to roll this out remotely, not only to water tanks but potentially to innovative storage heaters around the country, and this would be for peanuts, with a small bit of joined-up thinking.

EnergyCloud is saying it currently takes one hour to install. What is the cost of that install? Is there merit in looking at this in the context that we were told that last year, there were just short of 6,000 homes with a deep retrofit carried out. The scary thing about this is that there were 1,600 homes for which the SEAI said it was not going to carry out installations. Half of those were because the houses were not suitable for installations. The other half were for different reasons. Would it not make sense in those cases for the SEAI, at a very minimum, to spend one hour installing the technology to ensure that, after telling people it is not going to do anything for them after those people having spent two years on a waiting list, it could do something as basic as this and at least give these people a free tank of water one in three nights in the year? Again, there seems to be a lack of joined-up thinking across the board with regard to what we are looking at.

I will turn to Irish Rural Link for a minute. In Mr. Boland's initial evidence, he said that its member organisations do not know about the programmes that are going on at the moment. We are talking about community organisations around the country that are advocating for communities and are unaware of the schemes and projects that are available. There is something fundamentally wrong in terms of the communication strategy if we are not even getting to those representative organisations, never mind the community groups on the ground. It is clear there is a communications deficit that needs to be addressed.

Mr. Boland spoke about the anomalies in the fuel allowance. One of the recommendations this committee made to the Minister for Social Protection is that we need to address those anomalies but we also need to introduce a half-rate fuel allowance for people who are just over the threshold so that it is not an all-or-nothing situation.

The committee had the opportunity yesterday to get a technical briefing from the SEAI regarding hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO. We were told that 90% of HVO could be blended with 10% kerosene in a mix. It could run existing oil-fired central heating systems with the cost of converting the boiler of about €300. We could reduce the amount of fossil fuels being consumed in oil-fired central heating by 90% if we invested €300 in every home. The difficulty is that we do not have the HVO, and we will not be able to meet current demand. However, the SEAI pointed out that by 2030, the demand for heating oil will go from 15,000 GWh to 4,000 GWh. Based on the existing projections, there would be 1,500 GWh of HVO available. About one third of the demand could be met, so we could blend it at 30% rather than 90%. That is based on existing projections relating to the EU market.

My next question is for Mr. Boland. In the context of dealing with the challenges we have in respect of agriculture and livestock and the fact that farmers are struggling to make an income rearing cattle, would it not make sense for us to increase production of HVO? We could produce rapeseed oil to meet the demand for HVO here. This would reduce biogenic methane emissions from cattle and provide a badly needed cash crop for farmers. It would also meet some of the State's sustainability challenges. I stand open to correction, but I think we have by far the highest number per capitaof oil-fired central heating systems in Europe. District heating or natural gas are not going to crack the nut here. This is because we are so dependent on oil-fired central heating and, sadly, a huge amount of solid-fuel heating as well. Is this a win-win opportunity to meet the sustainability needs, address the difficult challenge of oil-fired central heating and provide cash crops for farming families that are struggling to make an income at present? I will ask Mr Lee to address those questions first.