Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A BER certificate is issued both before and after the works to capture what has been achieved. That is an EU requirement. Some €25 million has been allocated for phase 2 of the scheme next year. A call for submissions is issued to all local authorities every year seeking applications for funding under the energy efficiency retrofit programme. It is natural and positive that there are always more requests than can be funded each year. This means that there is an ongoing demand. In 2019, the local authority funding request was approximately €40 million. Approximately €25 million of this has been spent so far this year. The same will be spent next year. We recognise that this is an area into which we will need to put more money in the coming years. The initial projection of the cost to retrofit all existing social housing stock is anywhere between €1 billion and €2 billion. We are committed to doing that over the coming years through a roll-out organised by our Department in conjunction with the Department of the Minister, Deputy Bruton. There is a bit of work to be done there.

The aim is to get homes to a BER of B2, which is the cost-optimal rating. This involves initial work to clarify the state of a home and then seeing what is achieved after works are completed. On top of that, the best way to achieve our overall aims is to survey the condition of our stock right across the counties. Such work is being done in Clare and other counties to develop a picture of where we are. We will then be able to budget correctly for the years ahead.

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