Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Boylan for raising this important issue, and it is something that I feel strongly about myself, particularly when it comes to low-income families, and the Senator mentioned the Traveller community. She is correct that these groups are much more exposed to high energy costs than wider society, and I accept her point. I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who is busy this afternoon participating in a meeting of the EU transport Council.

The Government is fully committed to combating energy poverty and protecting the most vulnerable in society. The Government provides extensive supports for household energy costs. There are specific schemes aimed at those at risk of energy poverty, including the household benefits package and the fuel allowance. Government policy has supported the introduction of competition to energy markets to drive down prices. Consumers can now make significant savings by switching energy suppliers, somewhat mitigating the impact of price rises, but I do take on board Senator Boylan's point in respect of the capacity of consumers to do that.

However, upgrading the efficiency of someone's home is the best long-term solution to helping a low-income household to manage their energy bills. It tackles the root cause of the problem as opposed to treating the symptoms. Free energy efficiency upgrades have been a pillar of Government action on alleviating energy poverty for the past 20 years. To date, more than 142,000 homes have received free upgrades under the better energy warmer homes scheme. This scheme is funded by my Department and administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. It delivers a range of energy efficiency measures free of charge to low income households vulnerable to energy poverty. This leaves the occupants better able to afford to heat their homes to an adequate level.

There has been substantial progress in reducing energy poverty since 2016. The Government's strategy to combat energy poverty was published that year, setting out a number of actions to alleviate the burden of energy poverty on the most vulnerable in society. The focus of this strategy was on high-impact actions which aimed to make a real difference to the lives of those in energy poverty.

Over the lifetime of the strategy, the Government has taken a number of steps to alleviate energy poverty. Free upgrades were carried out in over 23,000 lower income homes under the main SEAI energy poverty schemes. The warmer homes scheme has started providing deeper measures, increasing the investment in each home and increasing the benefits to the homeowners. A consultation on energy efficiency in the rented sector has also been completed with recommendations to follow in 2021. The allocations for retrofit of social housing have also increased significantly, with an allocation of €65 million for 2021. Funding for the SEAI energy poverty retrofit schemes has increased dramatically over the period, from €15 million in 2015 to more than €109 million in budget 2021.This progress is evident from the work undertaken by the ESRI on the level and extent of energy poverty in Ireland over time. This work found that the proportion of households in or at risk of energy poverty has reduced from 28% to 17.4% over the lifetime of the strategy. I consider that to be good progress, but there is still a long way to go.

The programme for Government and the climate action plan set highly ambitious targets for the number and depth of retrofits to be completed by 2030. We need to retrofit 500,000 homes and install 400,000 heat pumps in existing homes over the next ten years. It is crucial that we support low-income households to participate in this transition. For this reason, the programme for Government commits €5 billion to part fund a socially progressive national retrofit programme targeting all homes but with a particular focus on the midlands region and on social and low-income tenancies. In practice this funding will mean that more households can receive free energy efficiency upgrades, making their homes warmer, healthier and cheaper to run.

In addition, the climate action plan made a commitment to review energy poverty schemes to ensure they target those most in need. The Minister's Department has been working on this action and the