Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

Hundreds of thousands of renters in Ireland face that double blow of rents that are too high and energy bills that are artificially high because they live in homes that are not energy-efficient.

Their homes are cold, draughty and mouldy, which is a direct cause of energy poverty. It is also a contributing factor to our carbon emissions from the housing sector. The Minister of State has set out some research done by the ESRI. It is valuable research. It shows us the scale of the challenge. Some 240,000 to 260,000 homes will need to be retrofitted. The overall cost to retrofit them all will be between €7 billion and €8 billion. The Minister of State listed three measures, which is great, but at what point will we see a systematic approach to dealing with a challenge that is huge in its scale? We need a plan. Is the Minister of State still going to bring forward a roadmap? Can he give us a date for when that roadmap will be published?

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