Environmental Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
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Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal East

There were a number of supplementary questions there. The Deputy mentioned the accessibility of grants. That is what I changed earlier this year. We do not want to leave anybody behind. There are some questions later about the warmer homes scheme, which is the full 100% grant. We have done full deep retrofits, which are 100% grant-aided, for close to 40,000 homes for lower income families. That is really important. I changed the grants earlier this year to break them down and I brought in the windows and doors grant. Previously, people could not get these grants unless they did a deep retrofit. The combined grant is €4,800. I doubled the heat pump grant to €12,500. Wall, cavity and attic grants were all increased. These grants are all accessible. It is not necessary to do everything together. With certain BER ratings for homes, it is possible to get the windows and doors grant with only one additional measure, like attic additional insulation. We are seeing people respond to that. I gave a figure earlier of well over 80,000 grant applications.
I always keep this situation under review in respect of whether there are additional supports - not increased grants - we can bring in. That is paid for through the carbon tax, and this is why it is important that the tax is used to make permanent changes for households. I responded to the Deputy earlier in relation to home heating oil. We are looking at it in advance of the budget.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17