Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth for coming to the Chamber. I also thank the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, for his presence earlier. When the Minister, Deputy McGrath, came before the Joint Committee on Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach last week, he made a number of comments, some of which I would like to pick up on. He highlighted that the national development plan sets out the broad direction for the investment priorities over the coming decade, that at its core, the national development plan is a high level financial and budgetary framework and that the national development plan is the largest and greenest plan ever delivered in Ireland. Of course it is and you could not disagree with any of that. If we look a bit further, we see this repeated statement that the national development plan is about aligning the Government's fiscal framework with the Government's climate ambitions. Most of us in this House and indeed the Dáil are clear on the absolute need to meet our emissions targets and cut emissions by 51% by 2030. We are clear on the ambition and the targets. However, it is telling that in the detail regarding retrofitting within the national development plan, there is a recognition that €28 billion has to be spent on bringing our housing stock up to a sufficient standard over the next decade, and yet the Government is only committing €8 billion in direct expenditure funding to that. The Government has acknowledged that almost a quarter of our housing stock, that is, 500,000 dwellings, need to be retrofitted. That is a recognition that housing accounts for 12.5% of emissions in the State and that it has a significant role to play in emission reduction. However, the NDP indicates the overwhelming reliance will be on private households and landlords to stump up two thirds of the cost of retrofitting the housing stock in this country. That is not good enough because it fails to recognise the extent to which many households do not have the spare capacity to invest in retrofitting. They do not have the discretionary spend left over at the end of the week. All of us here talk to young families who are paying a very large share of their income on childcare, to the person who has spent years saving to buy a house of his or her own or the older person living alone who depends on a small occupational pension. It is not good enough because it fails to recognise the scale and pervasiveness of fuel poverty and households living in energy-inefficient homes throughout the State.

This is an important issue to me because in the areas I am most familiar with in Dublin 1, 3, 7 and 9, there is a massive issue with energy-inefficient homes. This imposes additional costs on those who own those homes and particularly on those renters who cannot do anything about the energy bills they are facing and those who are struggling to make ends meet. We know from the data of the Central Statistics Office, CSO, data on domestic energy ratings based on the 2016 census that those living in Dublin 3, 6, 7 and 8 were the most likely throughout Dublin city and county to be living in a G energy-rated home. If we think about that, the aspiration is to bring homes up to a building energy rating, BER, of B2 and yet in Dublin 7 alone almost one in eight houses has a BER of G BER. As the Minister of State is aware, there is a world of difference in the cost of running a G energy-rated home relative to a B2 standard. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, estimates that the annual difference between running a two-bedroom apartment that is G-rated versus a B2-rated apartment is nearly €2,500 while for a three-bedroom semi-detached house, the difference is €3,200. Not only is it five times more expensive to run a G-rated household, it also generates more than five times the level of emissions. Going back to the national development plan, there is a commitment to put equity, inclusivity and fairness at the heart of the prospective national retrofitting plan and yet there is a major gap between the detail and the fine words in the climate action plan and in the national development plan. We heard the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, in the Dáil two weeks ago talking about how critical it is that the money this country had saved would have to go into the national retrofitting plan. He is right. Many households have saved money over the past year. I acknowledge there are issues about dead-weight loss and that those who can afford to retrofit should be able to but what about the households badly hit by job losses and lost earnings and that now must start out again having been out of work for so long? Where is the recognition for that? When I read the national development plan, the repeated focus is on private finance and loan guarantee schemes to fund retrofitting. I firmly believe that is short-sighted and wrong because it will ensure that fewer households than necessary will have their houses upgraded. There are many households which simply do not have the means to take on additional debt, no matter how low the interest rate or over what duration it is spread. They will need grants. While the Better Energy Warmer Homes scheme provides 100% grants, it is for social welfare recipients whereas for the Better Energy Homes scheme, applicants need to have money to be able to access money and support.

I will conclude on a more positive note and say that in my own area and right across inner city Dublin, there are many examples of people coming together to put forward proposals.The Phibsboro Village Climate Club has done enormous work in looking at the energy profile in the area. It says that if we installed PV solar panels on 10% of the 7,800 houses in the in the area, we would be able to reduce the energy bill across the whole area by 20%. The impact of that alone on people's lives would be enormous.

I thank the Minister of State for listening. As someone within both the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, he has the wherewithal to put in place the sufficient supports and grants to ensure that those who want to retrofit can do so.