Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Apartment buildings have additional and complex issues that need to be addressed when considering whole building retrofit upgrades. This includes technical issues like heat pump system design solutions, as well as resident and mixed ownership issues which can often be very challenging.

Officials from my Department, the SEAI and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage are members of a Working Group for an EU-supported research project on retrofitting apartment complexes. The research project is being led by The Housing Agency.

The key objective of the project is to establish models and frameworks to advance whole-of-building retrofitting of apartment buildings in Ireland where there are multiple owners of homes in the blocks. The project aims to identify management, finance, and governance barriers to whole-of-building retrofitting, and to make recommendations in relation to related policy, good practices, and potential solutions. Work on the project is continuing, and it is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

It is important to note that upgrading of entire apartment buildings can currently be supported under the SEAI Community Energy Grant Scheme. In recent years, SEAI has supported a number of such projects, which included households that were eligible for a range of SEAI grant schemes, living in apartment buildings. In this regard, the SEAI is happy to engage with apartment block Owner Management Companies (OMCs) in relation proposals for energy efficiency upgrade projects and I would encourage any such OMCs to make contact with SEAI.