Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are a number of issues that we should discuss in this House in the immediate future, one of which is the home retrofitting plan. There are a number of aspects of that plan that need to be teased out. It is all very well to announce that €X billion is available for this plan and that X number of houses are due to be retrofitted, but I am concerned to ensure that the resources involved in this particular area of construction are not diverted away from home building. I would like to see a clear evaluation done on how this new programme, if it is unleashed, is going to affect building costs, labour shortages and skills shortages right across the construction industry. Perhaps we should not be subsidising the retrofitting area massively at a time when we are trying to attract building firms and building contractors to deal with the housing crisis. There is a very substantial question as to whether we should attempt to do both at the one time, especially since subsidies combined with shortages will inevitably lead to price rises.

I would also like the Acting Leader to make time available for a discussion as to precisely how the programme of retrofitting is to be carried out. A sum of €50,000 is a lot to spend on one single home and an awful lot of work is involved in the spending of such a sum, or at least one would hope so. If that is the case, the question as to who is likely to take up the Government's offer and whether they will get an economic return on their expenditure of €25,000, which would justify most people making an investment of that sort, has to be thought through carefully.What I am really saying is that it is all very well to go public and say that this is a dazzling new programme, but there are consequences. There are consequences for the construction industry. There are consequences for shortages of labour and for skilled craftsmen and the like. There are consequence for prices of materials. There are consequences for home-building prices. There is potentially a significant diversion of resources from home-building construction, which, as I understand it, is the Government’s key priority politically, economically and socially at this stage. We should reflect on how it measures in with the whole question of retrofitting homes. We should have a debate in this House on that subject.