Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I accept there are sound arguments about the benefits of the scheme. One way to speed up the process is to employ additional contractors. We are up to 36 contractors now. I have also been informed the SEAI has allocated additional staff to the warmer homes scheme, knowing the funding will increase year on year. There has been a major increase this year and there will be a further increase next year. The authority can employ those staff knowing there is a real balance.

The SEAI is understandably worried that it might appear before an Oireachtas committee and there might have been some money inappropriately spent in some way. Given this is a 100% grant, often to private households, the staff in the authority want to ensure the standards are right. That should not and does not preclude us from reducing the ten-month waiting time to get through the process. We have to give the SEAI licence to a certain extent to push further and, while not taking risks, at the same time not to be so risk averse that we end up losing the householder. That is a difficult balancing act. I have been saying to the organisation all the time to go faster, be flexible and be quick, as much as anything else, because that is what we need.

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