Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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499. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the funding used for SEAI grants; and the number of persons and households that gained funding or access to grants in each of the years 2017, 2018 and to date in 2019 in categories (details supplied). [43166/19]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department funds a number of schemes to support homeowners to improve the energy performance of their properties. These are administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).Since 2000, over 400,000 homeowners have received direct support under these schemes to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. This year €100 million has been allocated to these schemes.

The Government’s Climate Action Plan sets an ambitious target of 500,000 energy efficiency retrofits by 2030. Achievement of this target will be supported by the Project Ireland 2040 allocation of €3.7 billion as well as the range of measures identified in the Plan.

Budget 2020 has allocated €146 million for retrofitting homes and businesses. This will support the upgrade of up to 24,000 properties in 2020. This record level of investment is an important step towards realising the Government’s Climate Action Plan targets for building retrofits.

The following table below presents the number of grants availed of under each scheme in 2017, 2018 and to date in 2019.

*€861,000 spend in 2017relates to 3 completed homes and 37 partially completed.

There is also a wide range of supports available to incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles including SEAI grants, tax reliefs, accelerated capital allowances for businesses, low motor tax and discounted tolls.

In August, I announced funding to support the rollout of up to 1,000 on-street public charge points for electric vehicles over the next 5 years. This is to cater mainly for electric vehicle owners who rely on on-street parking as their primary means of parking near their homes.

Budget 2020 will see €36 million allocated next year for these supports. Of this, €6 million will be provided to support charging infrastructure and €30 million allocated towards purchase grants.

The following table presents the number of grants availed of under the purchase grant and home charger schemes in 2017, 2018 and to date in 2019. To date, there has been no expenditure under the Electric Vehicle Public Charge Point Grant scheme.