Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 May 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Energy Poverty: Discussion

Photo of Alan FarrellAlan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Murphy for that remark. To be fair to both the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, there are retrofitting technology facilities around the country, and we are establishing more of them, but this is a point that often comes up when I talk to people in my community or constituency about retrofitting - the fortunate ones who have the capacity to have retrofitting carried out. They express concern about heat pumps on the basis of stories about poor installation, so it is definitely something we need to look at.

From research done by their organisations, are the witnesses aware of prepay meters having been removed in any other jurisdiction and, if so, whether it had a positive impact on the number of homes that were exposed to energy poverty?