Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am not for a second suggesting we should ignore it but we need to provide a pathway for those hard-to-reach households. We cannot ignore them. I would look at the number of heat pumps that have been installed and consider how many are in the poorest, coldest homes. How many are in homes where people are burning turf and sticks? I would say it is a tiny fraction because those houses are not suitable or the homeowners cannot afford the installation. We need to provide a solution for them. I know there are questions in terms of sustainability. Let us look at all of that but we need to provide a solution for those households. Otherwise, we are at real risk of leaving them behind and driving a wedge between people. When the Minister comes in here and talks about the success of retrofitting and heat pump installation, those families see that it is being done in other people's homes. There are, of course, questions about land use, sustainability and the supply chain. However, others have raised the weaknesses in the design of the schemes and the fact people are being left behind. It behoves the Government to find solutions. If the Minister is saying hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO, is not the solution, he needs to show us the evidence for that and provide an alternative.

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