Ms Clare O'Connor:

We fully agree on the issues of skills and labour capacity. There really is not enough and this needs to be tackled quite urgently. There is a more efficient way of rolling out the retrofitting scheme whereby local authorities retrofitting homes in certain areas collaborate directly with the SEAI, which is also retrofitting homes in the same area so that an area-based approach is taken. We propose looking at areas with the highest rates of energy poverty in the country and do a mapping exercise to identify the highest rates of energy poverty and the lowest BERs in order that the local authorities and the SEAI come together to actively target them and prioritise them.

On the issue of people not understanding the scheme or not wanting to get involved, recently we worked with the Irish Green Building Council, which did interesting research on our behalf. We have not published it yet. One thing it found was that even for local authorities that go out to try to sign up people to get their homes retrofitted, there is a bit of hesitancy. Fingal County Council has done this in a really positive way. It went to housing estates that had predominantly social housing and some private homes. It grouped them all together to offer everyone this retrofitting service. It employe a tenant liaison officer. This was very effective in speaking to people and explaining exactly what was happening and being a touch point for them throughout the process, including after they got the heat pump installed. There is confusion around the actual operation of heat pumps. To have one person directly there to hold the hands of people as they go through this is very important to develop the understanding so people know the benefits of it.