Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

The budget is in two weeks time and the work it is doing must feed into that process. It will continue to meet over the autumn and report to the Cabinet committees on social inclusion, climate change and energy security.

One of the first areas that must be tackled is the legacy of older buildings with poor energy efficiency standards. Sustainable Energy Ireland's low-income housing programme was established to address this problem. Its primary focus is the warmer home scheme providing attic insulation, draft-proofing, lagging jackets, energy efficiency lighting, cavity wall insulation and energy use advice at little or no cost to eligible householders. These can have a significant effect on people's fuel bills.

The scheme is targeted at householders in receipt of fuel allowance, disability or invalidity benefits. It is provided free of charge or for a nominal fee of less than €100 to a target audience of 300,000 households suffering from fuel poverty. The houses are identified by community-based installers who work with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the HSE and local GP networks. It is a good example of how we can target investment at low income housing.

I doubled the allocation to the low income housing scheme, bringing the total allocation for this year up to €5 million, allowing the SEI to fund energy upgrades for some 5,000 vulnerable householders. At the end of this year the scheme will have delivered energy improvements and energy efficiency measures to some 18,000 households in total.

My colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, introduced a housing aid for older people scheme on 1 November 2007, with the similar aim of providing targeted support to improve conditions in existing households of older people. The scheme assists with works that can improve the energy efficiency of homes, such as insulation, the provision of central heating and the repair or replacement of windows and doors.

The central heating scheme has been allocated some €26 million in 2008 and provides funding to housing authorities to upgrade their rental homes, including providing attic insulation to building regulation standards and draught-proofing windows and doors. It is estimated that an additional 5,000 local authority households will benefit from improved conditions and lower energy bills as a result of this year's investment in that scheme.

The Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, has a crucial role in protecting vulnerable customers in the energy markets. Under the European Communities (Internal Market in Electricity) Regulations 2005 the CER was charged with ensuring that adequate standards to protect vulnerable customers are in place, including measures to help customers avoid disconnection. The CER sets out the guidelines for the protection of household electricity and natural gas customers, particularly the elderly, customers relying life support equipment and those with disabilities.

Another innovative development in the building area which this Government introduced is the new home energy saving scheme which we piloted this year. It is aimed at improving existing housing stock by introducing either wall, roof or attic insulation or other measures, which are assessed by an energy adviser. Such advisers are supported by the Government to assess a building, arrange a contractor to do the work and then to return to carry out a further energy assessment so the householder has a clear knowledge of what is possible. I am glad to say that while this is a complex scheme that requires a lot of collaboration between local energy agencies, energy assessors and local authorities, it is proving both popular and effective. During this pilot phase of the scheme, we are seeing energy savings of approximately €500 per year on typical energy bills. These figures do not take into account recent rises in oil prices. The pilot scheme is working and I hope to expand it to a wider range of existing housing stock.

The above mentioned changes relate to the built housing stock but we need to go beyond that. One of the key areas in which we will arrange such a policy of extending our work is the new national energy efficiency action plan, which is designed to deliver on the Government's target of a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2020, which fits in with our overall European commitments in the energy area. The national energy efficiency action plan was put out to consultation in October last year. I expect to bring it to Government shortly and then bring it into action because action is needed in a whole range of areas to enable us to cut back on our fuel bills.

We have already taken action in the behavioural area, which is crucial, and we have been successful in that regard. The power of one campaign contained a series of different advertisements aimed at the householder, people on the street and businesses with very simple examples of ways to help people to save money on their fuel bills.

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