Mr. Jim Gannon:

I will start with the points raised by Deputies Dooley and Stanley on deeper retrofit. There are things we must look at very carefully. This year, as opposed to prior years, where we would have looked at the number of retrofits in the tens this year, we are going to look at hundreds depending on how many we can get. It is important we look at the different housing types in Ireland, the different archetypes, and the different technical solutions because there could be a number of ways of reaching a particular level of performance. We would also look at the costs of that and how the consumer would finance it, whether a green bond or a grant-type programme. We must ask what is the most cost-effective way of incentivising that and in getting consumers to a point where they are willing to invest in their homes for the price of a reasonably sized car. That is not insignificant in itself. The final piece is to test the supply chain. Do we have the designers, the technologies to put into the homes, the trained men and the tools to do that, given that we have fewer than ten apprentice plasterers in the country at the moment? We are significantly increasing our testing of that market and it will go on during the year. It will be completed very transparently also.

With regard to renewable and transport, unfortunately, what I referred to is quite anodyne. It was looking at perhaps increasing the substitution level towards 2020. It is likely that we will start to address the use of electric vehicles in a more material way this year within SEAI. While not necessarily redesigning the incentive, we have already started to look at getting greater impact from what we are doing with electric vehicles, including the electric vehicle grant scheme fleet. It is pertinent to hand over to my colleague, Dr. Eimear Cotter, who leads the forecasting exercise, including the modelling as referred to by Senator McDowell.