Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

There was discussion about the cost of retrofitting and the affordability gap as regards the warmer homes scheme and retrofitting. It is important to point out that, in the recent budget, €558 million was allocated to the SEAI. I hope we will see more of the various grants over the next year and over the coming years. I hope that industry will also play its part in bridging that affordability gap. We cannot rely on the State to always step in when there are issues with affordability. Whether it is in construction, healthcare or any other area of society, we cannot be reliant on the State, particularly when we want to reach particular targets for carbon, sustainability and so on. I just wanted to put that on the record.

The question I had for Professor Kinnane earlier that I did not get to related to the area of demolition and the proposed carbon caps. Will he elaborate on how such a mechanism would work in practice? What enforcement challenges might it face? We have seen really good examples. I take his point that the lifespan of a building should be a lot longer than 60 years and that we should be building for the long term rather than the short term. I can think of some really good demolition jobs that have worked out well. I think of the ESB headquarters on Fitzwilliam Street. A really good job was done on that. I can also think of poor jobs but I will not mention them. How would it work in practice? In housing, if there is an apartment block that we want to reconfigure and retrofit to deal with the housing crisis we are in the middle of, how would we reconcile those two issues?