Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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As the Minister knows, thousands of homes throughout the country are in urgent need of proper insulation to bring them up to an acceptable energy rating standard. Dublin City Council has been involved in an extensive programme to retrofit its housing stock and bring those homes to a reasonable energy rating. This has entailed insulating attics, fitting heat pumps, doing wrap-around insulation or pumping insulation into walls, and changing windows and doors where necessary. This has proved to be very successful, particularly as many of the houses that needed urgent retrofitting date back as far as the 1950s.

The construction of some houses using precast concrete slabs, as is found in housing estates in Finglas south, has caused serious dampness and mould. This has health implications for the residents and large energy costs because of the gaps caused by the deterioration of the sealant used on the joints of the slabs. The external wrap-around insulation has eliminated much of these issues by sealing these gaps. Solid walls require the wraparounds while other types of walls, such as double leaf, are pumped.

There is less of an incentive for those in private dwellings to retrofit their homes, however, because they have to pay a substantial amount of the cost of such retrofitting. The Government's plans to increase grant funding for such works from 30% to 35% at present up to 50%, as outlined in the recently launched national retrofit plan, will not incentivise those who are on low pay.

The issue that really concerns me is that under existing rules, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, allows for only one visit to the residence for works to be carried out regardless of how minor these works might have been. I am aware of quite a number of cases across the constituency of Dublin North-West in Ballymun, Finglas, Whitehall, Santry, Glasnevin and so on. In many instances, only minor works were carried out and residents were refused a return visit. I have dealt with examples of such cases whereby works to add insulation were carried out ten or more years ago and anyone today who had such minor works done is being refused further works.

I am currently dealing with a particular case that illustrates the absurdity of the current rules when applying for retrofitting works to be carried out in a residence. This is one example of many and concerns an elderly gentleman living alone in Whitehall who is on a pension and receives fuel allowance. He had his attic insulated ten years ago. He is currently in rehabilitation in hospital but will be returning home in the near future. His house dates back to the 1950s and would require wraparound insulation and an upgrade to the heating system, among other measures, to bring it up to an acceptable energy standard. His request for works to be done has been repeatedly refused because the SEAI is adhering to the Department's rule that it carries out one visit per home. This senior citizen will return to a cold home and high energy costs he can ill afford as he tries to heat his house. It has been promised since 2017 that this rule would be reviewed but to date there has been no movement on this issue. I urge the Minister of State to ensure that this matter is resolved and included in the Government's national retrofitting programme.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy very much for raising this issue. As he will know, I care very much about it. I am particularly interested to make sure the retrofitting money is targeted towards those who need it most. I want to give the Deputy an update today on Government action on the better energy warmer homes scheme.

The programme for Government and climate action plan set ambitious targets to retrofit 500,000 homes to a building energy rating of B2 and install 400,000 heat pumps in existing buildings over the next ten years. These targets represent a very significant increase in both the volume and depth of retrofit activity in Ireland. The recently published national retrofit plan sets out how we will achieve these targets and identifies an unprecedented €8 billion to support homeowners to retrofit their homes to 2030. It includes a range of measures aimed at supporting those least able to afford to retrofit. This week, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, also announced further improvements to the supports available to homeowners to retrofit their homes in line with the commitments in the national retrofit plan.

The better energy warmer homes scheme delivers free energy upgrades to eligible homeowners in low-income households who are vulnerable to energy poverty. It is administered by the SEAI. Since the start of the scheme in 2000, more than 143,000 free upgrades have been supported. In 2021, the average cost of the energy-efficiency measures provided per household was €17,100. A budget allocation of €109 million has been provided for the scheme this year. This will support an increase in the number of free home upgrades from an average of 177 per month in 2021 to 400 per month this year, helping to reduce waiting times.

The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications has committed to reviewing the qualifying criteria for the scheme, including the rule that only allows for one visit to homeowners. I am delighted to tell the Deputy that several revisions to the scheme were made this week to better target those in need. One of these changes means that for the first time, applications will be accepted from qualifying homeowners who previously received supports under the scheme but could still benefit from even deeper measures. This means applicants will now be able to have a second visit under the scheme.

The scheme will target the worst performing properties by prioritising homes that were built and occupied before 1993 and those with a BER rating of E, F or G. Existing applications will not be affected by this change, however. The scheme eligibility criteria will also be extended to include those in receipt of disability allowance for more than six months and who have a child aged under seven years. The scheme is now open to applicants in receipt of the following welfare payments: fuel allowance; those receiving jobseeker's allowance for more than six months and with a child aged under seven; working family payment; one-parent family payment; domiciliary care allowance; carer's allowance where someone lives with the person he or she is caring for; and those receiving disability allowance for more than six months and with a child aged under seven. The eligibility criteria are kept under ongoing review within the Department of Social Protection to ensure they are consistent with and complementary to the other income support schemes offered by that Department.

There are currently just over 7,000 homes awaiting works under the better energy warmer homes scheme programme. These include homes that are awaiting the initial survey of their home, those that have completed an initial home survey and are awaiting allocation to a contractor, those that have been allocated to a contractor for works and those that are currently undergoing works.

Activity under this scheme and the associated expenditure were significantly impacted in both 2020 and 2021 by the Covid-19 pandemic when construction activity paused for approximately 12 months in total in line with Government guidelines. Activity ramped up again towards the end of the year, however, and there is confidence around the capacity to deliver 400 homes per month under the scheme this year. Works under the scheme have restarted in line with activity in the residential construction sector.

SEAI data indicate that for homes completed to date, in 2021, the average time from application to completion was 26 months, taking into account the increase in waiting times due to the impact of Covid-19. For the same period, the average time for a surveyor to be allocated was approximately 18 months. A research network on fuel poverty, chaired by the Economic and Social Research Institute, has been established to examine the data and metrics needed to improve existing measures for fuel poverty in Ireland. The group consists of representatives from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the Department of Social Protection, the SEAI and the Central Statistics Office. The details I have outlined demonstrate the Government's significant commitments to supporting those at risk from energy poverty.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State very much. I must say that this scheme is very important and has been very successful. Dublin City Council has done a marvellous job in bringing it forward. More funding is obviously needed to enhance the scheme. I was glad to hear the Minister of State say that we will get a second visit. This has been a terrible bone of contention for many people, some of whom are very old people on pensions and some of whom are living in terrible conditions. I have been repeatedly refused - I do not know how many times - and it is very frustrating. I am glad this change is being made and I am waiting to see what that entails when the forms come out. I am not sure whether it will be linked to any sort of time or anything like that. I would not like to think we would link it and make it difficult for people. I hope we will revisit people who had works carried out less than ten years ago as well. That is very important.

It is a fact that where Dublin City Council has done many of the wraparounds, small private dwellings in between have been left behind. I would like to see better co-ordination between the SEAI and the local authority that is doing these wraparounds. I have seen now in different areas where two or three houses have had a wraparound and one house beside them has been left behind because it was bought off the council or is a private dwelling. That is something on which we need to see better co-ordination.

Many senior citizens will be glad to hear the Minister of State say we will get a revisit. I certainly look forward to talking to a few of them and assuring them that this will be done. This has huge impacts on the environment and also on the finances of ordinary people. It has massive benefits. I thank the Minister of State for taking this issue.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I am glad the Deputy welcomes this action. There are number of teams in operation and it is confusing but the SEAI can explain it. The local authorities are carrying out their own direct upgrades on their own tenants. They have €85 million for that this year which, as the Deputy said, is an enormous sum of money. Every local authority in Ireland has been allocated extra staff in order that they have the capacity to actually do the work, which was a fear.

Under the better energy warmer homes scheme, which we are talking about, money is provided to people who are homeowners but on very low incomes. They are often people who bought out their local authority homes. The last category comprises people who are not in either of those categories and who are getting this grant, which can be as little as €500 but up to €25,000.

On the SEAI and local authorities co-ordinating their response, I believe the Deputy is talking about where it would make more sense to do four houses in a block, particularly in a local authority area, rather than doing one and having it stand out from the others.

I will take the Deputy's advice to the SEAI when I next meet with that body. It has a sustainable energy communities initiative whereby it sits down with people on a particular street to discuss how all their homes can be done together in a way that brings everybody on board. There is some negotiation to be done in such cases because not everybody may be ready for the disruption involved in their home. I will discuss the Deputy's point with the SEAI. We are doing a large number of homes through those schemes. My expectation is that 27,000 homes will be completed, not counting the 2,500 direct builds that will be done by local authorities.

Up to 2018, the warmer homes scheme focused primarily on delivering shallow measures such as attic and cavity wall insulation. Many of the people the Deputy is talking about perhaps had a small job done and they now need to go further than that. He mentioned something that is very important, namely, indoor air quality and situations where condensation is coming down walls and leading to mould. There is a very high incidence rate of black mould in Irish households, which leads to a much higher incidence of asthma here than is the case across the European population. This measure is not just about energy, climate change and keeping people warm in their homes and bringing down their bills. It is also about improving their health, including their lung health.