Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I accept entirely that we are price takers in a global energy market and that gas prices, in particular, have gone up almost 30% in the last 11 months or so, which has a very severe impact on the provision of energy, including electricity. That is a very serious situation.

In reply to Deputy Ferris's question, I would hope the discussions we have been having over the past six months with the banks and the energy supply companies will lead to a new partnership between Government, banks and energy supply companies that will enable us to progress to a pay-as-you-save scheme whereby we could engage in retrofit far more widely than is the case at present and that could remunerate the cost of doing that out of the savings made in their energy bills.

I have not forgotten that some six months ago or so I met the Construction Industry Federation about the role it might play in this regard, given there is a significant dimension of this that would create employment. As I was asking him questions about the standard of heat efficiency in Irish houses, one member of the CIF said to me: "To tell you the truth, Minister, most of the houses in Ireland are only shelters from the rain." I did not remind him that he had built a good deal of them himself, but if that is the standard, we need to address it as our first target.

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