Energy Conservation
Dail Éireann — 2023-11-16
============================================================

Eamon Ryan (GP), Dublin Bay South

I accept there are sound arguments about the benefits of the scheme. One way to speed up the process is to employ additional contractors. We are up to 36 contractors now. I have also been informed the SEAI has allocated additional staff to the warmer homes scheme, knowing the funding will increase year on year. There has been a major increase this year and there will be a further increase next year. The authority can employ those staff knowing there is a real balance.
The SEAI is understandably worried that it might appear before an Oireachtas committee and there might have been some money inappropriately spent in some way. Given this is a 100% grant, often to private households, the staff in the authority want to ensure the standards are right. That should not and does not preclude us from reducing the ten-month waiting time to get through the process. We have to give the SEAI licence to a certain extent to push further and, while not taking risks, at the same time not to be so risk averse that we end up losing the householder. That is a difficult balancing act. I have been saying to the organisation all the time to go faster, be flexible and be quick, as much as anything else, because that is what we need.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-11-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:24+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-11-16