Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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499. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of residential holdings in each local authority area; and the estimated number of residential properties, industrial and office buildings in each local authority area dependent on oil fired and gas fired heating systems. [9704/20]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The data requested by the Deputy is not compiled by the Department.  The information set out in this response has, therefore, been prepared using Central Statistics Office (CSO) data.

Part One: Number of Residential Holdings in each Local Authority Area and Number of Residential Holdings with Oil Fired and Gas Fired Heating Systems

The data is found in Table E1053: Private Households in Permanent Housing Units 2011 to 2016 by Type of Central Heating, Aggregate Town or Rural Area, County and City and CensusYear at the CSO StatBank website at the following link:

The data is drawn from the census of 2016; the data was published on 20 April 2017.

Table 1: Number of Private Households in Permanent Housing Units 2016 and Number using Oil and Gas Heating according to Local Authority Areas.

Part Two: Number of Industrial and Office Buildings in each Local Authority Area dependent on Oil Fired and Gas Fired Heating Systems

Table 2 below covers the heating systems of non-domestic buildings according to County. County data is the closest approximate data available for Local Authority Areas. The data has been compiled from the CSO statistical release. The data is found at the following link under the table title: Table 7 Main Space Heating System Fuel by County (Non-Domestic) 2009-2020.

The data was collected from non-domestic BER audits conducted in the period 2009 to 2020. The data was published on 16 April 2020.

Table 2 Main Space Heating System Fuel by County (Non-Domestic) 2009-2020

– No non-domestic unit indicated the usage of this main space heating fuel type for this county

Further data on “Non-Domestic Building Type” is available on the CSO website under the title Table 8 Main Space Heating System Fuel by Type of Building (Non-Domestic) 2009-2020 at the following link:

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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500. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if his Department has estimated the probable cost of replacing oil fired and gas fired heating systems nationwide over specified periods. [9705/20]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Government’s Climate Action Plan has set an ambitious target to retrofit 500,000 homes to a Building Energy Rating of B2 (or cost optimal equivalent), and to install 400,000 heat pumps to replace existing heating systems by 2030. Achievement of these targets will be supported by the financial allocation under Project Ireland 2040 of EUR 3.7 billion, and a range of other measures identified in the Climate Action Plan.  A cross-Departmental Retrofit Taskforce has been established to develop a new retrofit delivery model capable of achieving the above mentioned targets. Upgrading oil-fired and gas-fired heating systems to more efficient heat pumps is a core component of this new approach. The new retrofit delivery model will address barriers to energy efficiency investments in four key areas: customer proposition and demand generation, financing and affordability, supplier capacity and delivery structure.  The Taskforce is also working to determine the estimated cost of achieving our retrofit targets.

The Retrofit Taskforce report, which will include an estimate of the retrofit programme, is to be published in Q3 2020.