Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party)
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Unfortunately not. It is something we are pushing for. Before I go to Mr. Hoyne, I want to ask about the idea of supporting owners of heritage buildings who, notwithstanding all the great things they can do with their buildings to mitigate energy use, are probably going to have higher energy costs. It seems to me that, in order to incentivise people to own and live in these buildings, we have to protect them against those costs to some degree. That seems fair but I do not think anything like that is being done. The owner of a Georgian building in Limerick is treated in the same way as the owner of a brand-new A-rated home in any of our towns and cities and there is no discrimination in terms of the operational costs. This is something we need to start thinking about. We are going to have a situation where swathes of the population live in energy-efficient buildings and are not subject to those costs and, then, we have this very valuable housing stock that is there but the people who own it are going to be prone to very significant costs.