Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Government and our Department are fully committed to making homes warmer, reducing energy bills and cutting emissions. We will do this through the retrofitting and heat pump initiatives set out in the climate action plan and delivered via the national retrofit plan, which is built on the four key pillars of demand, supply, financing and governance.

Since 2019 we have made significant progress. To date there has been over €1.5 billion in support to homeowners to enable over 228,000 home energy upgrades, including over 30,000 fully funded upgrades for households at risk of energy poverty. Local authorities have delivered a further 14,300 upgrades, including over 7,250 heat pump installations. These are real measures, real upgrades and real savings for households. In parallel, delivery quality is rising. Over 76,000 B2 level upgrades have been supported to date. For 2025 we have allocated over €550 million for SEAI residential and community energy upgrades, including solar PV. This is the highest ever. Budget 2026 provides €558 million from carbon tax receipts and an €89 million increase is expected to be further supplemented through the European Regional Development Fund to keep delivery moving at pace.

We are on track to stay within the residential sectoral emission ceiling for the first carbon budget period to the end of 2025 based on the most recent SEAI assessment. Targets and allocations for 2026 will be set out in the Revised Estimates later this year. Our focus is very much on sustained investment, strong governance and steady expansion of capacity in the supply chain. The Department is very focused on continuing to fund these upgrades and prioritising those who are most in need and we are building on the pipeline for 2026.

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