Homes retrof it plan lags 90% behind target

THE Coalition’s grand plan to retrofit homes across the country to make them more energy efficient has reached less than 10% of its target.

In the Programme for Government and the Climate Action Plan, the Government aimed to retrofit 500,000 homes to a Building Energy Rating of B2 over a 10-year-period. It also committed to installing 400,000 heat pumps in existing buildings over the next 10 years.

Most of the retrofitting is being carried out by the SEAI, with local authorities doing the work on social homes.

However, plans to retrofit up to 50,000 homes across the State last year were severely dented by the pandemic, during which construction tools were downed for most of the year.

In response to a parliamentary question from Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, Environment Minister Eamon Ryan confirmed just 3,210 houses received an SEAI retrofit in 2020. He said this figure does not include local authority homes. However, figures obtained separately by the Irish Mail on Sunday reveal 1,740 local authority houses were retrofitted last year. This brings the total to just under 5,000 houses, some 90% short of the Government’s annual target.

Mr Tóibín said the number of retrofits carried out last year is ‘a significant shortfall from the Government’s ambitions’.

A spokesman for Mr Ryan said in a statement that the plan to retrofit homes was hampered by coronavirus restrictions ‘causing delays in surveying, tendering and retrofitting works’.

However, separate figures reveal there was a sharp decline in the number of local authority homes retrofitted in the years leading up to the outbreak of Covid-19. The numbers dropped from a high of 18,010 in 2014 to just 3,763 in the last pre-pandemic year of 2019.