Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber this afternoon. I raise an issue today with regard to the warmer homes scheme. As she is no doubt aware, the Government's climate action plan was published in November 2021. Among many other very welcome schemes, it included the warmer homes scheme. I have been contacted by a constituent. I would like to put on record the correspondence the person received from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, which, through the warmer homes scheme, provides free home energy upgrades to homeowners who get certain social welfare payments. These upgrades help improve the energy efficiency and warmth of the homes. The constituent who contacted me has mould in the house so there is a necessity for the scheme to be expedited, not just for the environmental outcomes but to help with the personal needs of the people who are probably living in energy poverty at the moment.

For the record, the correspondence the constituent received stated:

Current approximate wait times from initial application until the completion of works on the Warmer Homes Scheme is in the range of 24 months. It is important to be aware that it may take more than a 2 year waiting time before your home is completed. The following are the current approximate wait times for each stage of the application process.

- Survey - Approximately 14 months

- Works Completed - Approximately 24 - 26 months from application

- Post works BER/Inspection - Approximately 2-3 months after works completed

As per the estimated timeline, the post works BER/Inspection could be 29 months after the application is first made.

The SEAI also stated elsewhere:

We appreciate that the wait time may be disappointing for homeowners, however, the scheme does work within tight parameters and resources. This coupled with a high demand has led to the current wait time.

I do not want to be negative here this morning. I welcome this scheme and all similar schemes, but the wait times I have outlined associated with the application are not acceptable. This is on the back of the climate action plan, which was introduced in 2021. The application I am referring to was made in 2023, which was basically at the outset of the process, or the infancy of the project. The target is for 500,000 houses to be done by 2030. If we have such large wait times at the outset, it is quite obvious that by the time we get further into the decade, by 2027, 2028 and 2029, if the interest remains as it is at present, this process is only going to snowball and God knows what the wait times might. Thankfully, there has been a keen interest and a large uptake and this has been given as the reason for the long wait time

We must also take into consideration that, along with the warmer homes scheme, there is also the local authority retrofit programme and the low-cost energy home loan scheme for people who do not qualify for social welfare. Thankfully, the demand is enormous. There must be manpower issues. When we ask a question we are told how much money is being invested in the programme but money is not always the answer to every problem. There must also be manpower issues relating to bureaucracy and administration staff given the waiting times at the outset of a programme. It leaves a lot of questions to be answered. I hope the Minister of State might have some of those today.