Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 48: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to establish a loan scheme through local authorities for the retrofitting of houses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15604/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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This year my Department is providing €203 million to support a number of measures aimed at improving the quality and standard of local authority social housing stock, ranging from large-scale regeneration and estate-wide improvement works to the retrofitting and refurbishment of individual vacant and occupied units. My Department also provides Exchequer funding, amounting to €63.6 million in 2011, to support a suite of improvement works and adaptations to privately owned properties to meet the accommodation needs of older people and people with a disability.

Local authorities currently provide loan finance to low-income creditworthy households for house purchase or construction. I have no plans to extend the lending activities of local authorities to provide loan finance to homeowners to undertake refurbishment or retrofitting works to their private properties. My colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources recently announced the launch of Better Energy: The National Upgrade Programme, which is administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). The residential strand of Better Energy allows domestic customers to apply for an Exchequer supported incentive, currently a grant but which will migrate to an upfront discount later this year, for a range of improvement measures including wall insulation, high efficiency boilers, heating control upgrades and solar thermal measures.

Pay-as-you-save is a financial model which would allow energy consumers to finance energy efficiency upgrades through the energy savings generated. The Programme for Government commits to the roll out of a pay-as-you-save scheme after 2013 to enable the home energy efficiency programme to continue without recourse to public funding. My Department understands a proposal is being developed by SEAI in this regard in consultation with the utilities and financial institutions in line with this timeframe.