Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, more than one person died every week in Ireland as a result of asthma. One in five children and one in ten adults in Ireland have asthma. One in 14 people in Ireland have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. There is no doubt that these people are more likely to be hospitalised or to die as a result of Covid-19. Energy poverty has an adverse effect on health and cold, damp housing exacerbates these respiratory problems. I believe energy efficiency is the primary tool in tackling energy poverty. One in four people in Ireland today cannot afford to heat and light their homes. There is a moral imperative to ensure that everyone can afford to pay for their lighting and heating.

Budget 2017, which was my first budget as a Minister, saw a significant increase in investment in energy efficiency. That was expanded again in budget 2018, in which we looked at far deeper energy-efficiency upgrades. I was lucky to be able to secure, as part of Project Ireland 2040, a €4 billion budget for carrying out deep retrofits and energy efficiency to take dirty fossil fuels out of our heating systems, including in all homes, by 2035. The climate action plan brought that target back to 2033. However, as I said when Project Ireland 2040 was launched, it was not about the commitment and the targets, but about delivering on the targets, which would be the key challenge. One of the main measures relating to energy efficiency and particularly fuel poverty is the warmer homes scheme. Historically, that was focused on smaller, shallower measures to improve the energy efficiency of homes, but, as Minister, I provided the funding to carry out deep retrofits of homes across the country and dramatically expanded the investment in that in 2018. As a result, 5,255 homes had a retrofit carried out in 2018. These homes are occupied by people who are on social welfare and do not have the resources to carry out the type of retrofit that is needed for many homes and the older housing stock across the country.

In 2019, however, the number of homes retrofitted fell by 40% compared to what was achieved in 2018. Last year, 2020, it collapsed with a 70% reduction in the number of homes retrofitted compared to 2018. Today, there are approximately 7,000 families who are reliant on social welfare waiting for approval to have their homes retrofitted under that scheme.

Disappointingly, last week the current Minister responsible for energy, Deputy Eamon Ryan, said there were changes coming to the scheme "to better target those most in need". In other words, quite a number of those 7,000 people who are in energy poverty and who are reliant on social welfare will now be excluded from his revision of that scheme. That is wrong.

The Minister also announced a new national retrofit programme for 2021 but we have no information on that as of yet. We are already into February. If we were trying to maximise the number of retrofits due to take place and the capital drawdown in 2021, then that scheme should have been operational in January of this year. This was committed to in the programme for Government. There has been ample time to design this retrofit scheme and it has not happened. The argument will be made that we cannot retrofit homes because of the lockdown. I accept that people cannot go into homes at the moment with the current restrictions, but much of the work that is required is external. That could be prioritised at this time and be carried out. It is not just about energy poverty. Regarding the Government's own objectives relating to climate emissions, energy efficiency is the first and most significant step on the road to reducing overall emissions and improving air quality throughout this country.

As a result of the pandemic, families' heating bills have gone up dramatically and that has been compounded by increased carbon taxes and the subsidising of data centres. It is immoral that people who are struggling to pay electricity bills are subsidising the electricity going into data centres, many of which have been constructed on a speculative proposition. There was a 9% increase in residential carbon emissions during the 2020 lockdown and we have seen a fall-off in the retrofitting of homes, which commenced in 2019 and collapsed in 2020. We need a step change in retrofitting homes and that needs to be prioritised as part of the capital plan.

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