I welcome and support this motion and fully support the points made previously by my Independent and Parties Technical Group colleagues. I want to take the opportunity to highlight a number of retrofit and insulation issues affecting middle and low income families across the country. The warmer homes scheme available to families in receipt of fuel allowance is an excellent scheme in itself but it is underfunded and under-resourced. This results in a huge backlog of applications, with it to increase due to more families qualifying for key social welfare payments which underpin the scheme. Currently, it takes two years to complete a retrofit under the scheme. It takes two visits and 14 months to do the survey and it takes a further ten to 12 months to have the works commenced and completed. That timescale is obviously unacceptable and the scheme needs to be resourced and funded to ensure retrofitting is completed in at least 12 months. In regard to the retrofitting of local authority council houses, the National Oversight and Audit Commission has confirmed the target to retrofit 36,500 social housing units to B2 standard by 2030 will not be met, and not by a long shot. The target is low anyway and lacks ambition but the report states that even this low target is compromised by insufficient financial resources and by the operation of the scheme on an annual rather than multi-annual basis. The third issue is the lack of access by middle income families to various energy efficiency schemes. Representatives from the SEAI recently told the Oireachtas climate committee that cash upfront is a serious issue for middle income families, who have neither excess cash nor access to cash to avail of these schemes. After Government grants, a retrofit can cost up to €43,000 per house. This is leading to a green divide, where homes in affluent areas have access to the schemes as they have moneys and funds available for these upfront costs. I urge the Minister to take these issues on board and to act on them urgently as they are affecting families right across the country.

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