Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, for his patience and flexibility. I call Senator Garvey, who has four minutes.

Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth. I am not sure whether this is under his Department's remit but I thank him for coming in on behalf of the Minister for housing. My Commencement matter is very simple. It concerns the need for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to make a statement on the supports available to assist people living in older houses of high heritage value to help them to improve their building energy rating, using traditional or more modern building methods, whichever is necessary. Currently, out of the 1.5 million houses owned by people in Ireland, 23.8% of them were built before 1961. A further 20.8% were built before 1980 and another 10% before 1990. More than half of the houses are older houses with bad BER ratings. I have to commend the Government as the retrofit programme in general has been fantastic. We are retrofitting 1,000 homes a week and putting solar panels on 100 homes a day, which is really good. At the same time there is an older, more vulnerable community of people who are unable to avail of this because when a lot of the companies listed under the SEAI as one-stop-shops visit these older dwellings, where people have applied and have waited a long time, they are saying they cannot do anything for them. These are all older people.That is not right or fair. They are usually older, have less money and live in the coldest houses. I know we cannot get everything right overnight but it is time to hear from the Minister of State as to what is being done to help the more vulnerable people. I know many of them personally and have visited many of the houses. It is not fair for any company to be allowed to come down to the house and say it cannot do anything for the person. When I did up an old house, we thatched the roof, which made it highly insulated and we used hemp plaster on the inside of the house to insulate it as well. Things can be done. I did that 25 years ago. How that is not in place now beggars belief. We need to help with the older housing stock, help older people and give them the same funding and supports other people get so that we can hold onto these lovely old houses, people can remain in their old houses and live healthy lives instead of relying on a huge amount of fossil fuels to heat their homes because we have yet to figure out how to support these people using methods tried and tested for many years. The solutions are available. There is cob, hemp and dry stone walling - all of these things can be used. There are plenty of good people; there are great stonemasons and hemp plasterers. I grew hemp 30 years ago and used it to plaster our house. We do not need to pilot this. I do not want to hear about pilot schemes. I want to hear about what is being done about older people in older houses and how we can help them. I welcome the derelict housing grant, which is phenomenal, but I want to know what is being done to help bring the BER up, so that companies are not going down to old people who at last think they are going to get help and are told they cannot do anything for them.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Garvey for raising this issue. Older homes, built until around the 1940s, usually fall into the category of being traditionally built. These homes were generally built with solid walls, often with a lime or earthen based render finish and include stone-built dwellings. The main difference between traditional and modern construction is the way moisture is managed. Traditional materials and construction techniques allow for the natural transfer of heat and moisture. Solid masonry walls rely on their thickness to cope with atmospheric moisture. This means that standard retrofit solutions are often not suitable for use with traditional buildings as they can lead to adverse and unintended consequences for the building fabric and the health or well-being of its occupants. Energy efficiency upgrades appropriate to such materials and methods are needed in these cases. For instance, a stone or brick wall with lime-based mortar will need a lime-based plaster render to remain vapour permeable.

The SEAI advises that it does not exclude pre-1940 homes from applying to any of its grant-supported schemes. However, all SEAl approaches are determined by building regulations, incorporating National Standards Authority of Ireland SR 54:2014 code of practice for the energy efficient retrofit of dwellings. This means that wall insulation is not recommended under any of its residential energy efficiency schemes on dwellings built before 1940 constructed in stone, single-leaf masonry or composite wall construction. That said, the SEAI will assess applicant homes under the various residential energy efficiency schemes for suitable measures other than wall insulation.

To support and promote our built heritage and to discharge certain statutory responsibilities, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage operates the national built heritage service, NBHS. The NBHS works with owners, building professionals, local authorities and other stakeholders to ensure that our built heritage is valued, protected and carefully adapted, where necessary, so that its character and special interest can be enjoyed by future generations. In respect of improving the BER of historic homes, the NBHS’s role is primarily advisory. Last year, the NBHS published technical guidance for specifiers and installers, entitled, "Improving energy efficiency in traditional buildings". This guidance was developed in close collaboration with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the Office of Public Works, the Heritage Council and the SEAI. This document provides detailed and comprehensive guidance on the proper methods for improving the energy efficiency of solid masonry wall buildings. This covers the vast majority of buildings constructed before 1919 and includes the category of older buildings of high heritage value, referred to by Senator Garvey. The NBHS continues to work with the relevant professional bodies to disseminate the guidance.

In addition to SEAI schemes funded by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the built heritage investment scheme, funded by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and administered through the local authorities, can be used to fund energy efficiency improvements in protected structures and buildings such as those in architectural conservation areas, provided that those improvements accord with good conservation practice. The specific measures that can be funded include draught-proofing of openings, attic insulation, repair and upgrading of historic shutters, installation of secondary glazing and insulation of suspended timber floors. The scheme has a budget of €4.5 million for 2024.

Looking forward, SEAI and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications are examining options to pilot supports for traditional buildings through the existing one-stop-shop service. This will be progressed in the coming months.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. I welcome students from Saint Columba's primary school in Glasnevin who are here this morning. You are very welcome to Leinster House. I know it is the second-last or third-last week of school but the Cathaoirleach has a particular power to give homework off. In the event of you not getting homework, I am sorry you will not get homework off, but in the event of you getting homework, I offer you homework off for the rest of the week. I am sure you are getting homework off anyway for the last two or three weeks of term. I thank the students for being here. I hope they have a very enjoyable visit to Leinster House. I thank the teachers and all the staff for the work they are doing with the students.

Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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The bottom line is older people are living in older houses in the cold and spending a lot of money on heating their homes. Currently, the SEAI scheme looks like it suits everybody, but when older people living in older houses applied, the builders listed on that website - the only ones people can contact - came down and said they could do anything. While the Minister of State said, "The specific measures that can be funded include draught-proofing of openings, attic insulation, repair and upgrading of historic shutters, installation of secondary glazing and insulation of suspended timber floors", none of the companies offer those services. Something is wrong. Either the list of people willing to do the work needs to be broadened out or the companies saying "No" to people need to be told that is not acceptable. At the moment, I am aware of lots of people who were told there is no help for them. I do not know what to say to those people because this contradicts it. I do not know what, "In the coming months" means. The Minister of State said, "Looking forward, the SEAI and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications are examining options to pilot supports ...". We do not need to pilot supports. I have done up an old cottage and so have many others for many years. I can take the Minister of State to my house from 30 years ago. We do not need pilot programmes. The money needs to get to the people in these cold, old houses.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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Could I ask the Senator to be a project manager on some projects I am involved in? It would be great to have her doing it.

Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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No better woman.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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That is what I mean.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank the young people from the school in Glasnevin. Senator Garvey raised the case with such passion. She is a passionate and eloquent advocate for rural Ireland, as everybody saw on television last night. The case she is making is that people in very old houses, particularly stone dwellings, are often the people who need energy upgrades the most. They live in remote areas, are on low incomes or are older people, and they need their homes to be made warm. A primary function of any government is to keep old people warm in the winter. That is a basic thing. The Senator is absolutely right that we need to tackle this. The answer given is that the SEAI does not exclude their houses from grants. It does not do wall insulation but has a range of other supports. Those people should not be excluded. What the Senator said is that there is a disconnect between that advice and what is actually happening on the ground in County Clare, where contractors are saying there is nothing they can do for those people. I suggest that the Senator refer to my office one of those cases where the contractor said there was nothing they could do. I will go back to the SEAI and we will work through one of them to see what actually happens in practice. We have new guidelines for how to upgrade stone buildings and traditional housing. They are supposed to work in practice. If we can go through an actual example and see what is happening, perhaps we can learn from that.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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The fourth Commencement matter is in the name of Senator Lombard and is being taken by the Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke. We will wait for the Minister of State to come in. I apologise to all concerned for the change in the schedule. I thank the Minister of State for his flexibility.