Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 152, 154 and 155 together.

My Department funds a number of grant schemes, administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to support homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. This allows homeowners to choose the best home upgrade option to suit their particular needs.

Contractors operating under any scheme supported by an SEAI grant must carry out the works in line with the SEAI’s Contractor Code of Practice and Domestic Technical Standards and Specifications as well as best practice and technical guidance documents including:

• NSAI S.R. 54:2014 Code of practice for the energy efficient retrofit of dwellings
• Building Regulations Technical Guidance Documents
• The System Supplier/Product Manufacturer Guidelines
• Irish Agrément certificates
• Irish, British or European Standards Guides

In addition, contractors are required to demonstrate their tax compliance and insurance cover and cooperate with the scheme's Quality Assurance programme. The full requirements are set out here: www.seai.ie/grants/supports-for-contractors/.

The Building Energy Rating (BER) system is administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) in compliance with S.I. 243 of 2012. SEAI operate a Quality Assurance System which is used to continuously monitor the quality of BER assessments published by BER Assessors and to ensure widespread operational compliance with the BER Assessor's Code of Practice.

The process includes the following methods to maintain the quality assurance of the BER:

• Entry requirements for assessors such as pre-qualification requirements, mandatory training, with induction and mentoring for new entrants
• Validation rules for published assessments;
• Feedback measures including auditing, training and mentoring as set out in SEAI’s Quality Assurance System and Disciplinary Procedure which is available here www.seai.ie/publications/Quality-Assurance-System-and-Disciplinary-Procedure-New.pdf.

All homes upgraded under SEAI schemes require a post-works BER to be carried out and a number of schemes also require a pre-works BER.

As set out previously in the material provided with response to Parliamentary Question Nos 58, 59, 60, 72, 92 & 93 of 17^thJanuary, normally a home’s BER will improve after works are carried out, although there can be instances where the rating does not improve. The rating received for a home reflects the condition of the home and the calculation method as well as the documentation available to support the inputs in the BER at the time of publication of the certificate.

The rating a home receives can be affected by a number of things including the following:

• The calculation method at the time of publication;
• Primary energy factors for electricity at time of publication;
• The level of detail available to the BER assessor at the time of the assessment;
• Additional other works to the home.

In relation to the Warmer Homes scheme specifically, not all homes completed in 2023 had a pre-works BER completed as this requirement was only introduced for homes applying after February 2022. There were approximately 700 completions under the scheme in 2023 that did not have a published post BER at the time of the previous PQ response.

Homeowners can contact SEAI if they have any questions about their Building Energy Rating certificate at info@ber.seai.ie or on 018082054. Oireachtas members can make queries on behalf of applicants by contacting the dedicated email address oireachtas@seai.ie.