Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to mention two things. For the record, notwithstanding the fact that they are going to give us the document, could the witnesses give us a little bit of detail on how the operation in Tipperary works, its costs and its origins? If that model works we do not have to reinvent the wheel. This could be rolled out in local authorities over several years.

I asked a question about social housing and retrofitting. Again, the witnesses may not be in a position to comment on this. If they have thoughts on that I would be interested to hear them. I did not mention the private rental sector but I should have. The witnesses have prompted me to ask a further question.

There are 340,000 registered rental tenancies across the State. The vast majority of those are once-off, accidental or semi-professional landlords. They can already write off any capital improvements, albeit only at 8.5% or 12% annually. Is there an argument that they should be able to fast-track that? Should we offer a different kind of loan product alongside a clear target date by which they would have to come up to a certain standard? I do not want to open up the debate around carbon tax but even if one is in favour of it and thinks it incentivises, the one group for whom it will do nothing is the renters. They will be paying the tax but will not have any ability to control the retrofitting of the property. Do we need something specific for the private rental sector? It is currently decreasing but it is likely to start to increase again at some point in the future.