Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Cabinet has approved retrofit grants of up to €25,000. There will also be low-interest loans. The aim is to retrofit 500,000 homes by 2030 and install 400,000 heat pumps. The €352 million allocated for this year is just shy of €1 million per day compared to last year's €221 million for Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, schemes. However, there was a large underspend across SEAI grant schemes in 2021. The better energy, warmer homes scheme had a budget allocation of €100 million last year and the warmth and well-being scheme had a budget of €9 million. These provided for free upgrades for lower income households. Even allowing for the pandemic, though, only half of that allocation was expected to be spent last year. Even when the State was picking up all the costs of retrofitting, we were not getting the numbers done. How will this be addressed?

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