Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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146. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the grants and funding opportunities available to offshore islanders to improve the habitability, sustainability and energy efficiency of island dwellings; and the spending allocated by the State to cover these grants in each of the past five years. [23806/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Some €221.5 million in capital funding has been provided this year for SEAI residential and community retrofit programmes. This represents an 82% increase on the 2020 allocation and is the largest amount ever for the schemes. This allocation has facilitated the expansion and improvement of existing SEAI grant schemes and the introduction of new initiatives. The funding has already supported calls for projects under the new National Retrofit (One-Stop-Shop Development) scheme and the Community Energy Grant Scheme as well as a €47 million increase in funding for energy poverty schemes. Additional support is available to homes on islands under certain SEAI schemes.

- The Better Energy Homes scheme  gives grants to homeowners to improve energy efficiency in their homes. Applications received from specific offshore islands are eligible for 50% additional grant support under this scheme.

- The Community Grants programme, which awards funding to community-based energy efficiency projects, operates an application appraisal system which favours island communities.

- The Better Energy Warmer Homes scheme offers a 100% grant, subject to eligibility criteria and irrespective of location in Ireland.

The SEAI residential and community energy efficiency retrofit programmes are demand-led schemes and the table below sets out the amount of spending per scheme drawn down by island residents or communities over the last five years for home energy efficiency projects.

Community energy grants programme funding is provided on a project basis and the amount spent per home located on an offshore island within each project is therefore not available.