Retrofit scheme delivery
Mary Lou McDonald said the home retrofit scheme is too costly and has delivered far too few homes, especially for middle- and low-income households. The Taoiseach rejected the figures cited, said the target was lower than reported, and argued the State was on track to meet this year’s target.
Many people want to retrofit their homes but the reality is that they cannot under the terms of the current scheme. Not many have €25,000 to hand. The whole system as it is currently operating is a disaster. It is a time-consuming financial headache. It is therefore little surprise that only 89 homes have been retrofitted out of a Government target of 500,000. We were supposed to see 62,500 homes retrofitted this year but only a fraction of a fraction have been completed. It is now very clear that the whole scheme and system need to be completely overhauled. Those on middle and low incomes must be allowed to access this scheme, which they are currently locked out of. This means more public funding for the scheme. I ask the Taoiseach and Government to respond to the clear failure of this scheme and to change it.
Comment on this
The Deputy should do a bit more homework than just one article because articles can get things wrong from time to time. My understanding is that the article in today's Irish Examiner that was critical of the level of delivery against our national retrofit targets incorrectly referred to a target of 62,500 retrofits in 2022 when the actual target was 27,000. The latest projections from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, indicate that we are on track to achieve our target of 27,000 home energy upgrades this year. This compares to 15,500 upgrades last year. Of course, we need to ramp up delivery significantly in the coming years to an average of 75,000 B2-equivalent home upgrades per year from 2026 to 2030. The national retrofit plan is our roadmap to doing this. The article refers to just 89 homes being completed. This figure relates to output under just one of the SEAI schemes, which was only launched in February of this year and which is currently in the start-up stage. The reality is that demand and delivery across the range of SEAI retrofit schemes has been exceptionally high this year.
Comment on this
Some 35,000 applications for support have been received, which represents a 150% increase on the same period last year.