Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The VAT on heat pumps dropped in the budget. One reason for that is that we were allowed, under the VAT directive, to cut VAT. We are always constrained in terms of what we can do on VAT in Ireland. It is one area that is decided at a European level. We have a certain flexibility. The committee will know from getting a car serviced that there are different rates of VAT on the bill and labour is charged at a different rate from parts and so on. That is common. For my part, I would like the taxes on retrofitting reduced as much as possible. I would like to make sure that it is feasible for people who do not have large amounts of capital to have this work done. It is often those who need retrofitting or solar panels the most who are struggling to pay their bills and do not have a reserve of money available. If there is some way for them to make paying out of the savings made by reducing their energy bills, that makes sense.