Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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108. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of and position regarding energy upgrades as part of the better energy warmer homes scheme planned for 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35175/20]

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister's earlier answers on the SEAI scheme and the warmer homes scheme. On the additional 107 staff, who are they to be employed by? He will be aware that my main concern is the waiting list for the warmer homes scheme. Last month, 7,300 people were waiting of which 345 are in Mayo. How will they be prioritised? Who will decide who goes first? Will it be according to medical need or how will it be done? How will the Minister get more contractors in each county to be able to clear that backlog?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Of the 107 jobs there are approximately 50 within my Department, primarily in the energy sections. There are so many different projects going on at such a scale we find that we need additional resources. It is about the ability of the State to deliver but sometimes we meet a constraint. Fifty-seven will be in the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. It is an independent public agency but an agency of our Department so it is very closely connected, and that is a matter for the agency itself. It has already started that hiring process. One of the immediate urgent needs will be to recognise that we do have a backlog in the likes of the warmer homes schemes, partly due to the constraint in the resources of SEAI to be able to meet upscale demand, the constraint in the contractor space but also because of the unprecedented level of demand; it is a very popular scheme. It is up to SEAI to manage that. It uses other agencies to assist in the processing of it. We need to streamline and accelerate it and make it much easier for both contractors and householders. It is a slow enough process in my experience. I am aware that many contractors and householders have had difficulty in terms of the day-to-day management. It is not the most fast response type system. I am hoping that many of these additional resources will smooth out the process of applying and the process for the contractors to ensure they are spending most of their time working on the buildings and that it is a very easy process for them to register and carry out the work. SEAI has been a very reputable agency for a long number of years. It was given a challenge to scale up a massive new retrofit programme. The agency will have to be the key star actor in this.