Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, for coming in to discuss this all-important issue. My question is to set out the criteria relating to the home energy grants. I know it is not his area, and I know he is covering for the Minister, Deputy Ryan, today. I mean no offence to him but I am a little disappointed because there were a couple of questions I wanted to put to the Minister that are very relevant to the criteria. A lady who contacted me is living in a housing estate and the house next door to her gets a 100% grant but she gets no grant because even though the foundations of her house were started in 2006, the house was not completed in 2006. One of the main questions I wanted to ask was around how the year of 2006 was arrived at. I know some date had to be picked, but there are many other people in a similar situation. People are living in an estate where some of the houses were completed in 2006 while others were not even though they were all started in 2006 and they do not qualify for the grant. The person I spoke to is on social welfare and is in receipt of illness benefit as they are not able to work. They would like to get their house retrofitted, but the fact is that they cannot have it done because they cannot afford it. If they were able to get the 100% grant, it would make life an awful lot easier for them.

I also had an older person contact me this morning. I know we are trying to phase out boilers and change over to heat pumps. However, they would have to change their whole heating system. There are a lot of issues that the Minister, if he was here, may have been able to address. I am sure the Minister of State will have the criteria that are set out and I look forward to hearing them because sometimes questions are sent in to the Department and the response received is a little lacking. I look forward to his detailed response, and we can take it from there.

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Byrne for raising this important issue and for the opportunity to give an update on the criteria for home energy upgrades on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Ryan. The Government funds a number of grant schemes, as the Senator knows, to support homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. These are administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. Last February Government launched a range of new measures to make it easier and more affordable for homeowners to undertake home energy upgrades. This included the launch of the new national home energy upgrade scheme, which provides increased grant levels of up to 50% of the cost of a typical deep retrofit to a B2 BER standard.This included the launch of the new national home energy upgrade scheme, which provides increased grant levels of up to 50% of the cost of a typical deep retrofit to a B2 building energy rating, BER, standard. This scheme is available for privately-owned homes built and occupied before 2011. Homes upgraded under the scheme must reach a post-works BER rating of B2 or better and deliver a minimum energy uplift of 100 kWh per square metre per year. Non-corporate landlords and approved housing bodies, AHBs, are eligible for the scheme.

The better energy warmer homes scheme delivers a range of energy efficiency measures free of charge to low-income households vulnerable to energy poverty. In order to qualify for support, applicants must own and live in their home, which must have been built and occupied before 2006. They must be in receipt of certain social welfare payments. The scheme is currently available to households in receipt of fuel allowance under the national fuel scheme; jobseeker's allowance for more than six months and have a child aged under seven years; family income supplement; one-parent family payment; domiciliary care allowance; carer's allowance where a person lives with the person he or she is caring for; and disability allowance for more than six months and have a child under seven years of age.

A number of reforms to this scheme were announced by the Government earlier this year. Changes included allowing applications from qualifying homeowners who previously received supports under the scheme but could still benefit from deeper upgrade measures. This means that homeowners will not be precluded from applying for a second time for qualifying works not previously carried out on their properties. The scheme will also target the worst performing properties by prioritising homes that were built and occupied before 1993 and have a pre-works BER of E, F or G. Existing applications will not be affected by this change.

Under the better energy homes scheme, grants are provided to homeowners and non-corporate landlords who want to take a step-by-step approach to upgrading their homes. For fabric measures such as insulation, homes must be built and occupied prior to 2011. For heat pumps or solar thermal measures, changes were introduced this year to broaden the criteria meaning homes built and occupied before 2021 are now eligible for these measures.

The community energy grant scheme supports cross-sectoral and community-orientated partnership approaches that deliver energy savings to a range of building types, including public, commercial and community buildings, and has a particular focus on using the projects to deliver home retrofits. Under this scheme, homeowners apply for grant support through a project co-ordinator who then manages the delivery of the retrofit project on behalf of the homeowner. Similar to the national home energy upgrade scheme, this scheme is available for privately-owned homes built and occupied before 2011. Homes upgraded under the scheme must reach a post-works BER rating of B2 or better and must deliver a minimum energy uplift of 100 kWh per square metre per year. Non-corporate landlords and approved housing bodies are eligible for the scheme. As the Senator will know, demand for these schemes has been exceptionally strong following the changes announced earlier this year. I will give further detail in this regard in my closing statement.

If I may have a little latitude, I will mention the house that was built but not completed in 2006. I will bring that matter back to the Minister.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. It is good to get a clear answer and have the criteria set out with regard to the different schemes. Many small niche areas end up falling between the cracks, including cases where one household qualifies and the household next door does not. We need to address some of the issues in that regard. I will send a note to the Minister because there are a number of issues. Some people, particularly older people, find the process very difficult to get someone to answer the questions because much of this is done online. There are also waiting lists. I know of people who have been told they must wait 18 months or two years before they will be able to get works carried out. That is also an area the Department needs to address. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber this morning. I know this is not his area. I will send a note to the Minister directly.

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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I listened with interest to the points raised by the Senator. I thank her again for raising this very important issue. As we see in all our constituency offices, this matter is very pertinent. I will bring these issues back to the Minister.

The Government has set ambitious targets for Ireland to achieve by the end of the decade, including almost halving greenhouse gas emissions from the residential sector, upgrading almost 30% of the housing stock to a BER of B2 cost-optimal or carbon equivalent and installing 400,000 heat pumps in existing homes to replace older, less efficient heating systems. This constitutes one of the most ambitious retrofitting programmes worldwide.

This year has seen exceptionally high demand and there has been a huge uptake. Almost 41,000 applications have been received, which is an increase of 152% on the same period last year. Nearly 19,000 energy upgrades have been completed, which is an increase of 59%. More than 3,600 homes have been upgraded under the SEAI energy poverty schemes and almost 6,000 homes have been upgraded to a BER of B2 or better. The Department is working closely with the SEAI to build on this strong performance. There is a robust activity plan for the rest of the year.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. I will make a comment before we move on to the next Commencement matter. The Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is a great colleague whom I very much value as a parliamentarian. However, there is trend of responses being given by Ministers who are not from the Departments to which the Commencement matters are addressed. With due respect, the Minister of State was given a speech to read out in the House, most of which I could have taken from a website. It is disrespectful to the Seanad and the constitutional positions of Senators that we have this growing trend that it is somehow acceptable to send people in with an answer. The whole purpose of a Commencement matter is that it is a bespoke engagement of a Senator with a particular Minister about an issue to do with his or her Department, which needs to be explored in the course of the Commencement debate. It is wholly unacceptable that we have this trend.

I tabled a number of Commencements recently and, similarly, a Minister of State who is not even in the relevant Department came to the House to answer them. I will raise the issue again on the Order of Business later, as all Senators should. The manner in which Commencement matters are being handled treats Senators and the Seanad with contempt. We need to raise an objection to that. That is not a reflection on the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, who is, as I said, a very fine colleague. I call Senator Boylan.