Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue and I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, for being here to take it. I raised the issue very briefly with him on Priority Questions last week but I am glad to have some extra time here to focus on it.

I am concerned that people, who are isolated, have exorbitant bills related to heat pump use. I have spoken to members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and they referenced an increase in calls in that regard. I have a number of cases in my own constituency offices, which I will raise with the Minister of State. From my own research it looks like there is something of a pattern here. In an article by Paul McNeive in the Irish Independent just last week he said he suspects that there are thousands of heat pumps not working properly in Ireland. He said he speaks to engineers who talk about issues such as undersizing, incorrect installation, incorrect commissioning, the localisation of foreign manufactured heat pumps, and backup electric immersion heaters. The installation and the commissioning are an acknowledged piece. When I raised it with the council and others in Meath they talked about the know-how on the operation of these systems. I hear really good and positive accounts of heat pumps that are working well and where people are comfortable using them but when I put this out on social media yesterday, some people said it took them a few weeks to get used to the system and to get it calibrated and working correctly. My concern is that there is a cohort of people who, through a combination of the installation and-or the operation of these systems, are suffering with exorbitant bills. They are not in a position to have the comfort of being able to build up a bill of hundreds of euro while they take time to get used to the system. A bill for hundreds of euro is something they cannot live with, although there are other people who can live with it.

Paul McNeive put it well in his article. He said that once it is discovered that there is an issue with the heat pump, the question is where the problem lies. Is it with the manufacturer, the installer, or the commissioning engineer? Is the tenant or the homeowner responsible? The question is wherein lies the responsibility. Everybody points to each other, but in the meantime the arrears are accruing and bills are increasing.

The SEAI conducted some behavioural studies in advance of the energy conference it has in the RDS. The Limerick Leader covered similar terrain in terms of the high cost of bills. The headline of one article by David Power in March referred to heat pump system bills being higher than a mortgage and that is frightening off Irish homeowners switching. Given that the Minister of State wants to see a significant roll-out of heat pumps there is the added implication that if there is a huge cost associated with them that it is a bad news story for them but I fear a small cohort of people are being driven into bad energy poverty and that there are not the supports or system in place for them.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Deputy O'Rourke for raising this important issue which provides an opportunity to have a debate on heat pumps. The National Heat Study considered potential decarbonisation options for a wide range of dwelling and business types. It found that heat pumps are the optimal decarbonisation pathway for domestic heating systems.

Heat pumps are now the dominant heating technology for new builds with CSO data showing that heat pumps were installed in 95% of new dwellings during the first three quarters of last year. Heat pumps are also installed as part of retrofit projects, mainly with the support of SEAI grants or through the local authority retrofit programme.

The Department and the SEAI are working to ensure that the package of supports for heat pumps under the SEAI schemes align with best practice, including engaging with international experts on this issue. The SEAI also operates two heat pump pilots, which aim to inform appropriate processes and approaches to increase the number of heat pumps installations, while ensuring quality.

It is acknowledged that heat pumps that are incorrectly sized, poorly installed, not operated correctly or installed in unsuitable buildings can be less economically effective than traditional heating systems. In order to help mitigate this risk, the SEAI sets out clear requirements for its retrofit schemes to ensure the correct heat pumps are installed in suitable homes. These mitigations include: that the SEAI mandates the qualification of the individuals designing and installing systems; sets minimum standards for the fabric of the home with technical assessments required in homes built before 2007; it mandates the registration and approval of heat pump manufacturers and equipment; and it also mandates the installer to document the handover of the system to the homeowner.

The SEAI also carries out a significant number of inspections of retrofits utilising a targeted, risk-based approach to selecting homes for inspection while ensuring a level of coverage across the contractor base. More broadly, considerable work has been undertaken by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in recent years to grow the capacity of the construction sector and the number of workers with the skills required for nearly zero-energy building, NZEB, and retrofit.

Six NZEB centres of excellence are now in operation offering NZEB and retrofit upskilling and reskilling programmes. As a result, availability and uptake of these courses have increased significantly. The Department of further and higher education indicates that 4,442 people availed of upskilling and reskilling courses across these centres of excellence last year compared with 2,069 in 2022.

Heat pump systems are at their most efficient and effective when generating heat at a lower temperature. In such situations, they are extremely efficient and very economical to run with no requirement for additional heating sources, meaning there are no additional bills for oil, gas or solid fuel.

While electricity prices remain above their pre-pandemic levels, consumers have experienced reductions in electricity prices recently. While this reduction is welcome, I am aware that some homeowners, both with and without heat pumps, have faced challenges with their bills.

It is important to note that, throughout the period of high energy prices, the Government has continued to support energy consumers to stay warm and well. This includes a €2.2 billion suite of cost-of-living supports to assist families, pensioners, carers and people with disabilities as part of budget 2024. The Department is currently developing a revised energy poverty action plan which will be published in the coming months.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for his reply but I have to say, while it is useful information, it does not address the issue I am raising here today. My sense of things is reflected anecdotally and I can give some examples in my own area. A lady contacted my office who moved into a new one-bedroom unit in December. Her first energy bill for six weeks in the house was €615. That is in excess of €100 per week. I met one resident in a complex in Donacarney in east Meath who talked about being under severe stress due to very high energy bills. That resident realised that five or six of her neighbours were in the exact same position. There was a bill of €415 for a month in which a resident had not even taken up the tenancy. This is type of thing with which we are dealing. I have bills here from them of more than €2,000. Arrears accrue significantly and stress accrues to the same degree.

For me, the issue is a combination of the installation and operation of these systems. There needs to be increased oversight in this regard. I am not satisfied with what the Minister of State has said here. In the first instance, I call on the Minister of State to conduct an audit of the heat pumps that are installed and their operation and to talk to energy providers, and St. Vincent de Paul and others, to see if there is an intersection between heat pump installation, whether correct or incorrect, the operation of those and very high bills.

On the education piece, I have seen it time and time again whereby people give the key to the house and walk away. There has to be ongoing support around the use of heat pumps. It is not enough to say it is a new technology and that people should not touch the system and should leave it alone. That is not enough but that is all some people are getting.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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These are all reasonable points. The general problem is that Deputy O’Rourke is talking about unease and suspicion from experience he has had anecdotally from people coming to him. Of course, we all make our decisions based on constituents coming to us with issues, but we need more than that to be sure there is a widespread problem or to be sure of what kind of approach we need to mitigate it. As I have said, the SEAI does random inspections. They are risk-based and it tries to cover all the contractors. It makes sure its contractors are properly qualified and certified and that houses have the proper insulation or are suitable for having a heat pump installed. I do not doubt there are people who have had bad experiences and large bills.

The Deputy made the point that there needs to be good education on how to use them and that, in some cases, people have reported that, when they figured out how to use them correctly, they were then able to bring down their bills. I will speak to the SEAI about that. In any particular instance in which someone has a very high bill which does not seem right, I will go to the SEAI and explore it on his or her behalf or the Deputy can go to it directly. If he does not get satisfaction in that regard, he can come back to me so that we can find out why a system that is meant to bring down costs has not operated in that way. It is sometimes a shock for people. They are likely to get a larger electricity bill than before they had a heat pump because they should not be paying a gas, oil or solid fuel bill. That is likely to happen and there is a bit of getting used to the idea that you are now dependent on electricity in a way that you were not.

The SEAI has random inspections and therefore there is an element of audit in this regard. It has a lot of information on its website about how to use a heat pump correctly. I will ask the SEAI about the process for handovers, that is, when a contractor completes, particularly in the context of new builds because the vast majority of people who have heat pumps are new-build customers. It is important they learn how to use them correctly.