Dr. Brian Motherway:

I thank the Deputy for his kind words about some of our programmes. The smart metering initiative is led by the Commission for Energy Regulation. We work with it in that regard, particularly in encouraging people to change their behaviour and act on the information provided for them. It has announced a national roll-out of smart meters to all homes. I do not have the details in that regard with me, but the Deputy is correct in stating smart meters and the other technologies that are becoming available are empowering for consumers in understanding how they use energy in their homes. There are apps available for smartphones and other mobile devices, whereby people can interact with their heating systems, etc. This is exciting and will give rise to many benefits in the coming years.

I take the Deputy's point on the types of technologies consumers choose in order to upgrade their homes. The bread and butter of our grants scheme relates to attic insulation, cavity wall insulation, upgrading boilers and so on. There is no grant available for stoves. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Minister to decide what is grant-aided. We do, however, encourage their use under our utility obligations. As stated, the utility companies all have energy saving targets to meet and we assign credits towards those targets to technologies the companies may wish to promote. Some utility companies are promoting the use of stoves and we encourage them to do so as part of meeting their targets.

We work actively and intensively with all of the various public sector agencies and organisations. The target is that the sector should become 33% more energy efficient by 2020. Some bodies are moving very quickly in this regard and a great deal of work is being done, with some very positive projects in train. A new EU energy efficiency directive was recently finalised and this will drive matters forward even further. We will continue to work very closely with the public sector, marking it out as a leader in terms of retrofitting and improving energy efficiency.