Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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As I said earlier, it is roughly a two-year wait. That is unsatisfactory but it is a function of a massive increase in demand. One can understand if someone owns their own home and can apply for a 100% grant, which is not insignificant, with the average being a €25,000 improvement in their home, that is a very attractive prospect for many people. The only way we can bring that waiting time down is allocating further budgets. We look at that in the budget period. It already collects slightly more than half of the overall allocation. It has dramatically increased. I was looking at the figures earlier. It went from €20 million or €30 million five years ago up to about €230 million or some such number now. It is beyond compare how much it has expanded. It is a tenfold increase, and that will continue because it brings real social benefits and tackles fuel poverty at source. Unfortunately, I cannot promise a reduction of that timeframe because the more we improve the budget, the more houses apply. It is a matter of catching up all the time.

The question of local authorities is a matter for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Each local authority has to decide how it manages its operations. I will be honest and upfront that, from an outside perspective, I always felt it might not have been the central business for the local authorities. They may have been focused on new home building. However, there have been very good models. I have been out around councils and have seen examples, such as in Sligo, for instance, which did a really interesting job in how it introduced it in its council estates. It will continue to expand and grow. It is a much smaller budgetary allocation each year. From memory, it was €85 million last year. It is not insignificant but that means, divided among the 30-odd councils, it is a relatively smaller operation and, because of that, it suffers somewhat because it does not get the scaling up that aggregation brings.

One issue we will look at is to bring together some of the local authority schemes with some of the work we are doing with AHBs or the other schemes so that even if some of it is council housing and some is privately owned, is it all done at the one time. That might help local authorities to scale up their operations.

On the loan question, it only started last month. I understand, as the Deputy noted, that AIB launched today with rates of around 3%. That is up to €75,000 unsecured over ten years. That is as good as you can get in lending proposals.

I do not have any update yet on the numbers. It was always going to take a few months even to process them so we will not know until later this year. The market rates are probably 8% or 9%. That allows people to avail of the grants, which might cut their costs by a third. The lower bills for ten years will pay the cost of the loan and the person's house will be worth substantially more at the end of it. It really is very attractive. It is the first scheme of its kind. The EIB has not done it anywhere else. This is the first time it has been tried in this way. It is going to take off. I am very glad AIB and Bank of Ireland have launched today.