Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 17 May 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

National Oversight Audit Commission’s 2021 Annual Report: Discussion

Mr. Ciar?n Hayes:

First, I wish to confirm that we are looking at a tentative date at the end of August to meet with all the chairs of the audit committees. We are looking forward to that engagement.

On good practice and what is happening in Sligo County Council, the council took a very high-density social housing area and did a deep retrofit of it. The council has also been able to measure and calculate the energy savings for each of the tenants. It is intended to use those energy savings not just as best practice for other local authorities or social housing tenants, but also as best practice for councils to enable them to go out to the private sector to give an indication of the potential energy savings in private households. In addition to that, Sligo County Council is measuring the increased air quality, and is hoping to correlate that with data on admissions to local hospitals for respiratory illnesses. Over time, the council will be able to get a measure on the improving air quality, and will be able to calculate the additional health benefits for County Sligo. That, in turn, will be a measure of best practice that will be rolled out to the rest of the country.