Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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1297. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the estimated cost of extending the warmer homes scheme to include door and window insulation, external wall insulation and dry lining insulation in tabular form. [35736/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The energy efficiency measures the Deputy refers to in the question are known as ‘deeper measures’. Currently the Better Energy Warmer Homes scheme (WHS) provides ‘shallow measures’ to the majority of applicants. The WHS scheme is free of charge to eligible applicants. These shallower measures include attic and cavity wall insulation, draught proofing, lagging jackets, low energy light bulbs and energy advice. This package currently costs the Exchequer around €3,000 per home. In extreme cases where the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) surveyor deems a home to be in particularly bad condition deeper measures such as doors and windows, and other forms of insulation, may be carried out. In making this assessment, a surveyor will look at factors including the age of the home, the construction of the wall, the age of the heating system or where one is absent.

The reason that these deeper measures are reserved for the most inefficient and poorly insulated homes is that they cost well in excess of the measures currently offered. Were they to be offered as standard, the number of people who could be helped each year would be significantly lower. Indeed, the measures currently offered under the WHS were selected as the best balance that could be achieved between the resources that the Exchequer can provide to the scheme, the number of homes that can receive support and the energy savings that can be delivered. In short, the measures supported are those that can deliver the most energy savings at the lowest cost to the highest number of people.

SEAI procures a panel of contractors to deliver the measures under the WHS. These contractors are procured on a 3 year panel and provide their costs in advance. Therefore, contractors can be required to upgrade a wide variety of houses, and so in calculating their costs they have to take a range of different scenarios into account such as technology costs and inflation. It is on this basis that the costs for the measures that the Deputy has outlined are provided in the following table.