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

I have two questions, the first of which is for Mr. Hession. While I do not dispute the evidence we have heard from him, based on the evidence we got from the Irish Cancer Society, there is a lack of communication on the heating supplement. Mr. Hession is correct in saying that the safety net is there but it is not being put in place for people who are terminally ill with cancer. I suggest a pilot programme be considered, where we would work with the night nurses with the Irish Cancer Society or the public health nurses across the country who would be well able to identify homes where there is someone terminally ill and there is an issue with lack of fuel. They could communicate with a point of contact within the CWO service to ensure that a payment is issued in those circumstances to circumvent this problem. We do not want to hear evidence such as we heard this morning; there is absolutely no reason for it. There is a weakness in the linkage between both. The HSE or the night nurses may be the ones who could facilitate that. It requires a bit of flexibility from the community welfare officers. They have discretion, and that was put on the public record here. That discretion could easily be used in these circumstances.

Senator Wall spoke this morning about people whose incomes are just over the threshold for the warmer home scheme. The warmer home scheme used to have a provision whereby someone not in receipt of the fuel allowance could have the public health nurse certify a need for the retrofitting to be carried out in a home and be eligible under that scheme. However, that provision has been taken out of the scheme. The committee needs to ensure that it is put back in again.

I also have a question for the Department of Housing. I am disappointed to hear that it will take five years before we will have a full picture of the retrofitting needs in the local authority housing stock across the country. The committee believes we should ensure that all local authority housing stock is up to standard by 2030, not that we should have a picture of what that standard is. An issue that came up in the evidence presented this morning related to the new building regulations for energy efficiency for rental homes that were to be introduced by 2025. I ask Ms Stapleton to give an indication of the timeline for the introduction of those. What has been the Department's engagement with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications on the roadmap for the introduction of the regulations?