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

I absolutely accept the frustration about the long lead times and particularly around getting the BER to be able to make an application. We must be careful. We are putting significant funding into this and we have put in an additional €150 million. It is not a small investment, it has been massively ramped up and it will continue to become available. I keep reiterating that one of the benefits in this Government having the carbon tax system we do is that we know it is going to increase year on year and that a very large part of that money is going to the warmer homes scheme: 30% goes to social welfare increases to protect the most vulnerable and 55% goes to retrofitting and targeting in particular lower income homes through the warmer homes schemes, for example. I could really see that during the recent budget negotiations. I knew I had that increase in the bank before we even started any negotiations. This gives certainty to the contractors. We were able to deploy those new contractors. They know this business is not going away. They know it will be done systematically. I would love to have all 20,000 houses that have applied done and not just the 6,000, but that is 6,000 homes. It is not an insignificant improvement to the quality of life for the people in every one of those 6,000 homes. It is coming because of this steady, certain and properly financed method we have put in place.

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