Written answers

Tuesday, 15 October 2019

Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government

Energy Efficiency

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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635. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he has had discussions with the SEAI in connection with the budget increase of the carbon tax in respect of re-opening the deep retrofit scheme; if following these discussions there will be a change to the scheme; the number of extra houses that will be covered by the scheme in 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42085/19]

Photo of Eoghan MurphyEoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Responsibility for the SEAI Deep Retrofit Programme rests with my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action & Environment.  I am responsible for programmes that support energy efficiency renovations to local authority homes. On the latter, a new scheme announced under Budget 2020 will provide for energy efficiency renovations to a large number of social homes in the midlands and is designed to explore an alternative approach to the upgrade of the social housing stock.  

The specific design of the project will be driven by a Retrofit Taskforce, which has been established by the Minister for Communications, Climate Action & Environment and includes officials from my Department. This Taskforce will work with local authorities in the midlands and other local stakeholders to identify areas of sufficient concentration of local authority housing stock with poor energy efficiency conditions. By issuing a small number of contracts for a large amount of homes in defined areas, it is hoped that economies of scale can be achieved. 

€20m is being provided for the roll-out of the midlands social housing scheme in 2020.  This is in addition to the €25m also provided to my Department to continue the roll-out across local authorities of the longstanding Energy Efficiency Retrofitting Programme in 2020.  That main programme has already seen over 70,000 social homes upgraded since 2013, with a total investment of approx. €135m to date.

The exact number of homes to be upgraded under the midlands social housing scheme will depend on the starting point, size and type of houses targeted, as well as how successful the scheme is at achieving economies of scale.  However, I expect in the region of 600 homes to be upgraded in 2020 under this new scheme.

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