Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-11
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Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal East

I would not dismiss what the EPA says and I have not done so. I welcome the work it does. We are taking measures that have been agreed at Cabinet and among Government members and TDs, such as Deputy Boland, who support the Government. We have changed the retrofitting grants, which has made a massive difference not only from a climate perspective in reducing energy use but also in terms of cost and affordability. Since the changes I brought forward in the first quarter of this year, there has been a doubling. There have been over 50,000 applications to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, for home retrofitting and bringing about that retrofitting passport, to which Deputy Daly also referred, which means that you can break up the grants and make them more accessible. We are seeing people respond to that now, which is good. I want to see more of that. Nearly €670 million has been allocated to that. I want that money invested and spent. Over 264,000 homes have now had energy upgrades. That is very good for climate, good for reducing emissions and very good for household budgets. There were approximately 5,000 business grants last year. I am working on measures to make those business grants more accessible, too.
I brought in another €40 million this year for EVs. There has been a substantial increase in the number of registrations of EVs. I have ring-fenced €10 million for the scrappage scheme. I have been clear that it is a pilot scheme. We want to see how it works. If it is over-subscribed, it is a success. We want to get cars that are 13 years old or older off the roads. I have ring-fenced 65% of that funding for rural areas, which I said I would. Friends of the Earth and others have welcomed the focus on rural areas in particular. I will monitor that. If the scheme is open for one, two or three months and is fully expended, we will go back and look at it again. That is just an example of the type of measures we are looking to bring forward.
Underpinning all of it is the acceleration of renewables. I will come back in with a supplementary contribution.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-11