Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I will make a couple of opening comments and then ask a few questions. It is fair to say this committee has probably been behind the curve in terms of addressing and discussing the issues being raised today. That is partly, I suppose, because so much of our focus has been on the acute end of the housing crisis and therefore housing supply and all of that. It seems absolutely appropriate that we have this conversation now at a time when housing supply is increasing, albeit not fast enough for some of us, to ensure that all of the new builds, whether public or private, meet the kind of challenges that have been outlined by the witnesses.

I suggest to the Chairman that it would be good if members could agree on a short report for the Minister after this meeting, with some clear recommendations picking up on some of the points made, so it was not just a hearing but that something came out of it. This is in no way a criticism of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, and I will discuss the point with its representatives later, but I have been concerned for a while because the way in which a lot of those grants are constructed makes them very difficult for many homeowners to access. However, those grants that are accessed are really good and have huge benefits. I welcome the argument on blended finance and loan finance because it seems that given the scale of the retrofit challenge in the private housing sector, that is the only way it will be addressed. I would go further and suggest a mixture of loans and timeline deadlines. At this stage of the emergency, the only way we can ensure people take up loans is to set deadlines by which date they must be done. It is a little like a situation that arose when I was in the North when planning guidelines were changed for disability access to buildings. Rather than trying to incentivise behaviour, the British Government informed people of the financial supports in place and told them clearly that they had a set number of years, after which their buildings no longer would be compliant. Easier access to finance and clear timeline deadlines are what we need in this area.

While I know it is not the witnesses' own area, I have some concerns and I hope they might be able to make some comments that will inform us for when we have representatives of the Department in afterwards. A major concern I have is that while a significant amount of money has gone into upgrading local authority stock through retrofits, the BER rating to which that stock is being taken up remains very low. It is a B rating rather than the higher one. Have the witnesses any thoughts or ideas in terms of its development?

I am glad Mr. Kenny mentioned the issue of gas boilers. It seems absolutely crackers to me that we are about to have a new set of regulations in place and 50% to 60% of all new builds will have gas boilers. It makes no sense and I do not accept some of the construction industry arguments that it would be prohibitively expensive, particularly when one looks at the savings for homeowners in terms of reduced energy costs. They would actually get a much better deal. I am also hearing from people purchasing new homes, particularly homes that have mixed photovoltaic, PV, and gas or PV and electricity pump systems, that on buying their homes, a lot of the stuff has not been installed properly or in such a way that they get its maximum use. When they buy the home, there is an additional cost in getting a lot of the technology actively working in the house. Is that something the witnesses are coming across? Could they comment on that and give us their thoughts? That emphasises the strong point that was made in terms of the need for additional training.

I am amazed at the planning restrictions, about which I did not know until recently. The Minister has been willing, in both very good and very bad ways, to rapidly push through statutory instruments that have very significant planning implications, whether on building heights, building sizes or what we are getting at the moment with short-term lettings, which I welcome. This seems to me to be a no-brainer. Is there a reason it has not been done? Is there any resistance or opposition to it? That seems to be one simple recommendation we could make.

In terms of the one-stop shops, do the witnesses have an idea about how they could be best rolled out? For example, could we have one in every local authority in the country or what would work? Can the witnesses advise us on some of that, particularly from the experience in Tipperary, where there has been a lot of good work?

To go back to finance, could we consider making the case that Home Building Finance Ireland, HBFI, for example, could try to work in some of the points Mr. Barry made into the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme, whereby loans being issued from HBFI should have some of the same kinds of differentiating criteria? That would be a significant development as well. The witnesses might share with us any thoughts they might have about the criteria that could be developed for the Rebuilding Ireland home loan.

Finally, can the witnesses go into greater detail about building materials? Concrete is obviously the big one. There are lots of interesting new building technologies available, although that raises the same problem again of whether our construction professionals and workers are sufficiently trained. What kind of building materials should we be moving towards and what should we be leaving behind in order to do some of the things that were spoken about?