Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I welcome our guest as well. It is good to see you. Your family's restaurant is one of my favourites from childhood and still today.

This is a slightly awkward question for me because the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, that effectively manages these grants does not report to my Department. It is linked to another Department but it is a conversation we have had in my Department. Grants are available at the moment for Enterprise Ireland companies, especially manufacturing companies that are typically high-energy users. There are also grants for larger companies through the Large Industry Energy Network, LIEN.

There are smaller grants, but they are predominantly around energy audits. I am not aware of there being grants for the kind of small upgrading work the Deputy is talking about, as there are for residential housing through the SEAI, for example. If you are rolling out insulation in the attic, replacing windows, doing in-wall insulation and so on, that kind of relatively low expenditure has strong grant-aid support. We need to start looking at businesses that are not Enterprise Ireland businesses to assess how we can be financially supportive of those kinds of energy upgrades. I think there are some supports there, but they are limited enough. There are essentially vouchers to do an audit. If you spend over a certain threshold then there is some funding there for you. I hope my officials will correct me if I am wrong but that is my understanding.

We were talking about the work on the road map earlier. We are progressing a road map in this space with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The work on the road map will include wide consultation with industry and others and will detail the current financial, technical and advisory supports available to assist businesses in decarbonising their buildings through the SEAI, the enterprise development agencies and others and will detail any gaps in support and possible solutions available to assist the commercial building environment. We must get to a point where we meet the target of reducing emissions by 45% in this space by 2030. That is effectively all non-residential buildings in the country aside from public buildings. That requires the kind of upgrade we are expecting in our homes being done in businesses as well. Accordingly, we are putting a road map together. The two Departments are working on it and it will be done before the end of the year. We are going to need to have an answer for the kind of gap the Deputy has outlined.