Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy. As she will be aware, I, as the Minister of State at the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Employment with responsibility for small business and retail, have responsibility for ensuring that emissions in the commercial built environment are reduced in line with climate action targets. Achieving these targets will mean that many owners of commercial properties will have to carry out energy upgrade works to their buildings. Such works can include installing smart meters and replacing gas and oil heating with a heat pump system. Doing so will come at a cost, though, and it is for this reason that I welcomed the introduction of the business energy upgrades scheme, which is run by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. The scheme is designed to meet some of the upfront costs of these upgrade works and provide rapid grants and options for businesses at varying grant rates. They can get up to 30% support for a range of energy upgrade measures and up to 50% support to optimise existing systems and support retrofit design costs. I am pleased that there has been a strong uptake of the scheme since it opened for applications. There are over 200 draft applications in progress and 78 offers have been made to date, to an approximate value of €1.8 million.

The scheme is funded from the climate action fund and offers up to €120,000 for a range of common building upgrade measures, including pumps, solar thermal, automatic controls, heat pumps, ventilation and wall insulation. The applications received are for all the potential measures currently offered under the scheme.

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