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

The better energy warmer homes scheme delivers a range of energy efficiency measures free of charge to households vulnerable to energy poverty. This year's budget of €148.5 million is the highest ever. Increased awareness of the multiple benefits of retrofit and improvements to the warmer home schemes is driving increased levels of demand for the scheme, with more than 20,000 applications received over the period from January 2022 to the end of September this year. The scheme is delivering deeper upgrades with more emissions reductions and energy savings for homeowners. The average cost of upgrades increased to €24,000 in 2023, and these deeper upgrades take a longer time per home to complete. To the end of October this year, more than 4,500 homes have been upgraded. This are already more homes than were completed under the scheme in all of last year. We are on target to upgrade 6,000 homes under the scheme by the end of the year.

The average waiting time from application to completion by quarter 3 of 2023 was just under 20 months. This is a decrease from the average of 26 months for homes completed in 2022. The reduction in wait times follows a range of measures introduced by the Department and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, including enhanced budgets, increased staffing resources in the SEAI, and actions to address supply chain challenges. The SEAI has also established a new contractor panel in September this year, adding seven additional contractors, bringing the total to 36. My officials continue to work with the SEAI to maximise and accelerate the output of free energy upgrades delivered.

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