Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)

I thank all the witnesses for their presentations. We heard from all them that the built environment is responsible for 37% of total emissions in Ireland. There is a challenge in the context of continuing to construct 300,000 homes while also meeting the climate targets that have been set.

With the increase in construction, dealing with the carbon emissions is always going to be a big challenge.

I have heard from the witnesses about the need for faster approvals, the HVO hierarchy, the need for multi-annual funding - I presume that is to give clarity going forward - and the grants. To focus for the moment on retrofitting, it seems the Government has committed €558 million in capital funding, which does not represent an increase. There was supposed to be an increase in 2026 to €641 million under the 2022 national retrofit plan. Are the organisations disappointed with that and is it going to increase the challenges or difficulties for them? In fact, the entire capital allocation for subhead B on energy transformation is only €647 million. What impact is that shortfall in funding going to have on achieving targets for retrofitting?