Mr. Brian O'Mahony:

First, it would be on apartments or multi-family homes. We have schemes to support people who want to make applications for a single home. That amounts to the bulk of our customer-facing programmes. The community energy grant scheme, which Mr. Byrne mentioned, supports people who live in more complicated buildings like apartments and multi-family homes. We are looking at what the uptake is, how we can deliver that and what technologies are available. There is an opportunity in the future to move into solutions other than those available today, like heat pumps and things like that.

The Deputy asked about complex buildings such as older buildings. Generally, in the Irish housing stock there is cement based or concrete construction that commenced from the 1930s onwards. Many of those homes are very suitable for the products we support through our schemes. Many of the older homes, which some people call heritage buildings or buildings that are protected, were constructed a long time ago, maybe more than 100 years ago. They perform differently from a physics perspective because some of those buildings need to breathe. They need specific insulation or materials during retrofitting. The Department carried out a consultation on this and is developing guidance on how to retrofit those homes and the appropriate materials to do so.

SEAI has funded the retrofitting of older homes but some of those older homes face a challenge in the market, which is recognised by the Department and the industry. Our schemes require the materials used to meet certain standards and to be agrément certified because we want to make sure the right product goes in, that the home is upgraded to the right level, so that there will not be a problem down the road in a number of years time. That is really important and is the reason the Department and NSAI are doing this study into what are the appropriate products that we can support. When that study is complete, we will incorporate that into our grant schemes to support those homes.