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

If I may say so, the warmer homes scheme is an incredible success and enjoys great support from Government. Some €157 million is provided for the scheme a year and that figure will increase year on year. We are meeting our targets. It is working. The scheme is very popular and there has been a large increase in the number of applications because people realise that this 100% State support for those in the home is real. To illustrate the scale of the change that has happened, some ten years ago, around when Deputy Naughten was in office, the average payment under the warmer homes scheme was something like €2,000. It focused on those smaller measures, which are not insignificant. However, we decided that, if we were going to go into a house, we were going to go big. Five years ago, the average investment in the home under the warmer homes scheme was approximately €12,000. It is now €25,000 because we want to keep people out of hospital. We want to make sure they live in homes that are fit to live in.

There are some houses, particularly those built before 1940, built of brick, stone or other materials where you have to be careful about putting in insulation. You could end up creating a problem in the house, introducing a layer of damp that would worsen people's health. In such circumstances, you have to step back and recognise that this would do more harm than good. We are reviewing it. As I have said, we revised the process back in 2018. We will continue to review the scheme further to see how we can be flexible. However, we are obliged to spend the money in the interests of the householder and of the State and not to go into houses where it is not appropriate to do so.

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