Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this motion. I understand to a degree Senator O'Toole's frustration because he was a Member of the House a long time before me. However, he is not the first to advocate programmes such as this. Many years ago I heard people advocating the need for better insulation in our homes, attics and so on. Almost 20 years ago I can remember the ESB taking the initiative and including leaflets in its billing system on this type of activity to help energy ratings in the home. It was asking people to put lagging jackets on hot water cylinders, insulate attics and even doing special offers in ESB shops. I remind Members that this is not a new idea and that we are coming late to the table with this initiative. What is being proposed is a remediation programme which, the motion says, is aimed at "tackling the legacy of poorly insulated homes".

The Government alone is responsible for that legacy over the past ten to 20 years when the housing boom saw unprecedented levels of building in this country. It now has the audacity to say it is introducing a programme to deal with that legacy. Let us be honest about the fact that we have neglected our duties as Government and regulators of the building sector. We have neglected the opportunities, now well gone, to have insulated properly the many thousands of homes that were built. We are playing catch-up. I understand from the motion that the Government expects to have its back clapped, but I will not be doing that because it neglected the situation when it should have been addressed many years ago. It is not for the want of people telling the Government about it.

None the less, I welcome the principle of the grant scheme whereby people in sub-standard homes with heat going out the doors and windows will have an opportunity to deal with that issue. The amount of fuel poverty in Ireland is now widely recognised. I am aware of local authorities that introduced schemes where oil boilers and central heating systems were installed. Now I hear horror stories about some of these boilers being taken out and sold. People are selling the oil in the tanks because they cannot afford to burn it.

Waterford Stanley in my constituency was under serious pressure before Christmas and putting the staff on a three-day week. Now it has gone back on full-time work, which I welcome, because it makes solid fuel burners. Owing to the demand for solid fuel now, people are switching off their oil-dependent appliances and moving to solid fuel to heat the rooms they spend their time in. That is reality and here we are introducing insulation schemes at a very late date.

The scheme is broken down into three strands, according to the Minister of State. One is to cut heating bills, the second is to reduce carbon emissions and the third is to create jobs, all of which are to be welcomed. I have spoken already about some of the heating impacts. To reduce carbon emissions, a major job of work must be done because of the building energy rating that has been introduced. Again, that is late to the table because many of the agencies, even the local authorities, are not sure who the assessors are who will monitor this work, whether there are enough of them and if the public is fully aware of how they may be accessed. There is work to be done in trying to improve matters there.

As regards the warmer homes scheme and local authority housing, the Minister of State might clarify some of the confusion. The scheme is meant to apply, he says, to low income private homes and also to rented local authority housing. There is no mention of local authority housing qualifying for this particular grant on the Sustainable Energy Ireland website. The website says it applies to low income households or those on a social welfare allowance. There is no mention of local authority housing. My local authority was questioned on this recently and it was unable to answer. Senators are quite right in saying this scheme was announced without proper information and without the resources to engage properly with those required to assist in the working of the scheme. More work must be done in that regard because the message is incoherent and seems to be very disorganised.

Of course, there are the delays in the scheme whereby we are being told it is to be introduced in March and the industry is waiting, as is the public, on those who know about the scheme. These are unnecessary delays and should be dealt with as soon as possible.

Under the existing schemes in local authorities, especially those such as housing aid for the elderly and housing adaption grants, many people took the opportunity to insulate while houses were being renovated. I need not tell the Minister of State as a public representative how over-subscribed those schemes and grants are. In the summer of 2008 local authorities were closing the schemes because they had no more funding either from central government or their own resources to conclude and finish those grant applications that were in place. We are not properly resourcing them and that creates a problem.

People mentioned smart metering. This is a great idea but the roll-out is much too slow. Why are we taking so long since its announcement to see smart metering installed in the pilot areas? That programme needs to be speeded up. It will help raise awareness and give householders a better idea about energy usage in their homes.

On a related theme, there are barriers in the way of people lessening their carbon emissions. If they want to go to the night rate dual tariff meter, they first have to pay exorbitant fees for the ESB technician and then must pay a much higher standing charge for the meter. That means it is not viable for people to change to night rate electricity. This is typical of the simple things the Government can ask the ESB and other electricity providers to do to assist householders to shift their energy usage patterns, perhaps into the night-time, to lessen demand on generating stations and reduce overall carbon emissions. This can be done simply but we must incentivise such initiatives properly so that the public latches onto and avails of such measures. There are ways and means other than just insulating attics. While that is very important, there are other routes in the whole area of energy usage such as incentivising the use of renewable energy. More work can be done in this regard.

We oppose the motion because we believe the Government is coming late to the table. It is introducing a remediation package which we welcome, but the legacy of this Government over the past ten to 15 years when there was an unprecedented housing boom meant that building standards were not properly regulated. Now, at a later stage, we are trying to remediate all that, to pump insulation into cavities and attics, when it should have been done long before. Many people had been advocating this for many years. I can go back 20 years when the ESB leaflets were going into every house along with the bills. However, the Government turned a blind eye and took no notice.