Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

If one gets €4,000 in the grant the odds are approximately 2:1 that one is expected to put up €8,000. Perhaps that is prohibitive. Perhaps householders who are not purchasing elsewhere in the consumer economy are not doing this work. That may be the bigger part of the explanation. There is also a danger that those who are minded to take the energy efficiency argument on board and acknowledge that it makes their homes healthier, safer and warmer went and did it in the first flush of a few years and it is more difficult to get the message through to the remainder of the population. Either way we are going to test the market. That is why a great deal of effort is going into designing a product that will be attractive to the householder.

The Deputy will have seen the announcement across the water last week about the green deal. If the product is not attractive to the average householder there is no point boasting about its merits when the householder does not take it up. I would also expect that the contractors who work in this area would be part of the sales process, that they would explain to people the merit of this, the significant savings in their energy bills at a time when energy bills are high because we are a net price taker. We import the energy. There is a great deal of work going into designing the product; however, you can take a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.

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