Environmental Schemes

13. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment the actions he has taken following his concerns regarding the level of underspending by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland in 2025, the changes to governance, structures and delivery arrangements that he has sought; and the measures being put in place to ensure that allocated funding is translated into increased delivery of home energy upgrades in 2026 and 2027. [65126/26]

Earlier this year, the Minister wrote to the SEAI expressing concern that it had left €120 million in capital unspent. Since then, he has highlighted the rising numbers of applications for retrofitting. There is a recognition among the public that, to be as energy secure as possible, they need to retrofit. The Government has fantastic ambition in this space but is the SEAI set up for success? Does it have sufficient resources and capacity and the correct skill sets? What are we doing to make sure it delivers on the Government's ambition in respect of retrofitting?

I thank Deputy Boland for a really important question. She is right to highlight the fact that the SEAI underspent last year, even though it did more homes than it had ever done before. That is not a situation that we want. We want this money invested in permanent changes to reduce energy consumption in households and businesses to reduce their costs and reduce emissions. That is why, earlier on this year, I worked directly with the SEAI and instructed it to break down the grants to make them more accessible. We brought forward new windows and doors grants and we increased the fixed grant levels for attic and cavity wall insulation. We put a greater focus on supports for undertaking retrofit measures on an incremental basis as opposed to undertaking just one deep retrofit, the cost of which many households could not meet. A very purist approach was taken before. A retrofit had to cover everything. We have changed that to give people a pathway towards a full retrofit. I see that Deputy O'Gorman has arrived. I listened to his interview on this issue on the radio earlier, when he said there had been no changes to SEAI grants over the course of the past year, which is not correct. It is therefore timely that he has arrived. With regard to the take-up of grants, this year we have seen 88,000 applications. We have to watch the spend, however. I do not have the final year projections. Obviously, we will not see what has been expended yet. I know the SEAI is spending and investing more than ever. I expect an element of underspend this year. I do not know what that amount will be. It will be substantially less than last year. It is not something I welcome but I acknowledge the fact that we have brought in a whole suite of new schemes. With the support of Deputy Boland and of the Government over the coming weeks, I intend to seek additional supports. I am not referring to increased grant amounts but to additional things that we discussed here earlier, such as boiler replacements. Frankly, these are things that should have been done before. We are also looking at storage. That is what we are working through right now. We are watching the spend very carefully. I met with the SEAI again just last week. I meet with the authority regularly on this. Real progress is being made on the number of homes being retrofitted and that is to be welcomed but we need to make sure that the moneys raised are fully invested in retrofitting measures for households and businesses.

I agree with the Minister that it is absolutely essential that the money Government is providing to the SEAI is actually used and given to people for retrofits. I also very much welcome the improvements the Minister has made in the scheme this year. They have made it much easier and more financially viable for people to put in new windows, doors and so on. I appreciate that. In terms of the warmer homes schemes the Minister mentioned earlier, the issue has been raised that there are people who are in serious danger of not having heating in their homes this year. What is the SEAI doing to decrease turnaround times and to reduce them from the current 22 months?

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.

I welcome that. I had not heard about the 15 months. When I looked at the SEAI's website yesterday, it was still telling me that turnaround time was 26 months. It is important that be updated, notwithstanding whatever we can do to reduce the times. On actually getting this work done, the SEAI appoints a contractor from its approved list. Is there a sufficient number of contractors on the SEAI's approved list? What can we do to increase the number? We really need to do whatever we can to make sure that people are warm in their homes this winter.

On the specific question of the contractors, that was part of the discussion I had with the SEAI last week. It went out to public procurement for contractors for the warmer homes scheme and selected a number of contractors. I have asked the authority to review that with a view to adding more. I know of a couple of contractors around the country, very good companies, that did not make the list. I am looking at Deputy Carthy, who might be aware of one such company in his own area. These omissions surprised me. I have asked those questions of the SEAI at our meeting. I met with it on that particular issue the week before last. It is going to come back to me. I think we have an opportunity to get more contractors into the warmer homes scheme, notwithstanding the fact that the authority has awarded contracts only recently. It is about having additional resources to fast-track delivery. Particularly during an energy crisis and when we are seeing such price increases, these really good climate measures and energy reduction measures are also permanent cost reduction measures. We need to treat that appropriately. I will come back to the Deputy to clarify the turnaround time.