Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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312. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the funding allocations to each community-based organisation, CBO, in each of the past three years and in 2019 for the purpose of carrying out energy efficiency retrofits on the homes of persons on low incomes; the number of homes which were upgraded by each CBO; and his plans in respect the continuation of the work. [50862/19]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Better Energy Warmer Homes Scheme provides free energy efficiency upgrades to the homes of people living in or at risk of energy poverty. The Scheme is administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) on behalf of my Department.

The Warmer Homes Scheme is delivered through a panel of contractors, appointed through a competitive tendering process. Some contractors have tendered to deliver all measures available under the scheme and others are only tendered to carry out shallow measures.

A number of Community Based Organisations (CBOs) are contracted to deliver shallow measures only. Therefore SEAI introduced strategic partnerships for those CBOs to allow them to gain experience on retrofitting deeper homes referrals. This involved certain CBOs partnering with other contractors, to deliver deeper homes. This has allowed those CBOs who are only contracted to deliver shallow measures to gain more experience in deeper measures and also to financially benefit from their work on these homes, even though the allocation has not been specifically made to them. Therefore the figures provided in the following table do not reflect the full payments made to CBOs in 2018 and 2019, since strategic partnerships were introduced. SEAI estimate an additional €1 million - €1.5 million in payments were made to CBOs which are not reflected in the following table.

The following table outlines the number of homes and the amount allocated directly to CBOs in 2016 - 2019 YTD. The payments include VAT at 13.5%.

SEAI will be renewing its contract with Warmer Homes Scheme contractors in 2020, which will require all contractors to be able to deliver all measures, deeper and shallow. SEAI is encouraging all CBOs to apply for this contract and has been working with CBOs over the past year supporting them in up-skilling and gaining experience to help ensure they can compete for the 2020 contract and that their organisations remain viable.

A budget of €52.8 million has been allocated to the Scheme for 2020. This represents the biggest ever budget for the Warmer Homes Scheme – more than double the initial allocation for 2019.