Ms Marie Donnelly:

The council has come out with a recommendation on heat pumps. There should be a consideration of considerable financial supports for heat pumps in houses that are not yet fully retrofitted. A heat pump can be used, for example, in any house built to building specifications after 2007. What we have said is that, in circumstances like that, we have a heat pump grant of almost €10,000, but we need additional funding for adjustment of the radiator sizes and locations to complement that for houses that have not gone through a full retrofit. That is a specific area we addressed in our recommendations last June.

On solar energy, I am sure the Department of Finance would not like to hear this, but we have brought in grants of €5,000 for EVs, for example. In July 2023, we then reduced the grant to €3,500. Perhaps this was due to global issues as well, but in 2024 the sales of EVs reduced considerably. They are beginning to increase again. We are reducing grants on solar panels at the moment. Perhaps the speed at which we reduce grants is too fast. We need time for people to understand what new technology is, to talk to neighbours about it and see what neighbours have done to understand how it would fit in their own context and then to make the decision to go ahead. A rapid decrease of grant aiding does not facilitate that. That is why we are saying we need to look at the grants and capital investment people must make with regard to EVs and to support people in making that capital investment in order that they can make the choice and then get the benefit.