Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Again, we are in the process of simplifying the application process. We understand we need to do more to drive down wait times. We want to continue to deliver deeper, more complex upgrades at an unprecedented scale. The target for next year is over 60,000 upgrades and we are very much looking at accelerating that further. We have looked at cost inflation around much deeper upgrades. They have substantially increased from €2,600 ten years ago to over €29,000 now. There has been a surge in demand and we cannot ignore that but we have action under way in relation to increased budgets, extra SEAI staff, which is really important, and also a stronger contractor management system. I am very much focused on trying to get the target number of applications through to approval stage and allow many homes which deeply require these upgrades to get them in a more efficient manner.

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