Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The national retrofit plan is not working. The SEAI has confirmed that it is now taking up to 28 months for applications to the warmer homes scheme to be dealt with. I am a contractor. I flagged this issue 12 months ago when the Minister, Deputy Ryan, was looking at bringing out this retrofit system. I also said that it would not provide value for money at a time of an energy crisis and prices going through the roof. Some people who are looking at the grant system will not take it up because, given the current high energy costs, they are afraid they will not be able to meet their bills alongside the cost of retrofitting the house. They cannot afford to come up with the 50% that would be needed. I can tell the Minister the scheme does not offer value for money. I just got off the phone to a woman who has been waiting eight months for us to turn up to find out if we would do a job on her house. There are people who cannot get a contractor to carry out the works. There is no incentive for people to do it because they do not have the means or the money.

I saw today that the Government's intake on electricity alone is up 30% even though it reduced the VAT rate to 9%. It is getting €4.64 billion extra in VAT even though it reduced the VAT bill, but now it is talking about putting it up to 13.5%. That would put more hardship on every business and person in the country while the Government is talking about retrofit grants and making it affordable. People will be lucky to have food on the table this year with the way the Government is going.

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