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

I do not have the figures. I gave Deputy McAuliffe an answer regarding the uptick earlier on. We did 8,100 warmer homes schemes projects in the last full year, 2025, which is a big increase. Overall, just short of 40,000 homes have been done. We will exceed that this year. Obviously, we still have a few months to go. We will exceed the number done the previous year. I have mentioned the issue of those who have end-of-life boilers. There are specific things that we can do. We are piloting high-temperature heat pumps, the plug-in heat pumps, at the moment. That pilot will continue for the next few months. Should efficiencies arise from that, should it be an option and should the data from that pilot stack up, there will be an opportunity for us to roll that out at scale. That would be a very viable replacement for boilers. However, in the meantime and in advance of the budget, I am working on measures for that particular cohort.
I will get the exact figure but turnaround times have gone from 22 months to 15 months. That is from the date of application to the completion of works. It is still a long time. There is a lag in getting a contractor and so on. However, there is a big focus on that because there are significant savings to be had for people, particularly those in energy poverty.

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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