Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 530: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the reason for his decision to withdraw €10 million from the group broadband scheme and award it to Sustainable Energy Ireland; the lobbying received for such a move; and the details of all correspondence between himself and SEI on this matter. [28575/07]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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The Greener Homes Scheme has been very successful since its launch in March 2006, with 16,000 grants approved since its inception. The aim of this scheme was to stimulate demand for renewable heat technologies in homes. Phase I of the Greener Homes Scheme delivered within budget in 18 months what was originally envisaged as a five-year programme and all of the €47m budget is now committed. Since Phase I was launched, the number of registered renewable energy installers has increased dramatically and there has been a ten-fold increase in products available on the Irish market. This clearly demonstrates the very significant level of market development since the scheme was first launched.

The consistently high demand for the scheme showed that there was a clear opportunity to further develop the sector and make an even greater contribution to reducing fossil fuel dependence. Consequently I released €10m from the Information and Communications Technology Programme. While significant progress had been made on the procurement process for this scheme, no substantial expenditure was likely to be incurred until some time after a service provider has been appointed. This is expected to happen during quarter 2 of 2008. While discussions were held with SEI, no lobbying was received from any parties for this inter-vote virement. Certain payments from these programmes were put back into 2008 to allow SEI meet their more immediate demands.