Warmer Homes Scheme Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 December 2019

Thursday, 5 December 2019

Questions (312)

Róisín Shortall

Question:

312. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the funding allocations to each community-based organisation, CBO, in each of the past three years and in 2019 for the purpose of carrying out energy efficiency retrofits on the homes of persons on low incomes; the number of homes which were upgraded by each CBO; and his plans in respect the continuation of the work. [50862/19]

Written answers

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment

The Better Energy Warmer Homes Scheme provides free energy efficiency upgrades to the homes of people living in or at risk of energy poverty. The Scheme is administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) on behalf of my Department.

The Warmer Homes Scheme is delivered through a panel of contractors, appointed through a competitive tendering process. Some contractors have tendered to deliver all measures available under the scheme and others are only tendered to carry out shallow measures.

A number of Community Based Organisations (CBOs) are contracted to deliver shallow measures only. Therefore SEAI introduced strategic partnerships for those CBOs to allow them to gain experience on retrofitting deeper homes referrals. This involved certain CBOs partnering with other contractors, to deliver deeper homes. This has allowed those CBOs who are only contracted to deliver shallow measures to gain more experience in deeper measures and also to financially benefit from their work on these homes, even though the allocation has not been specifically made to them. Therefore the figures provided in the following table do not reflect the full payments made to CBOs in 2018 and 2019, since strategic partnerships were introduced. SEAI estimate an additional €1 million - €1.5 million in payments were made to CBOs which are not reflected in the following table.

The following table outlines the number of homes and the amount allocated directly to CBOs in 2016 - 2019 YTD. The payments include VAT at 13.5%.

CBO	2016 total homes	2016 total spend	2017 total home	2017 total spend	2018 total homes	2018 total spend	2019 YTD total home	2019 YTD total spend	Total Homes	Total Spend
CBO1	405	€613,609	356	€619,153	170	€354,485	14	€68,554	945	€1,655,800
CBO2	213	€689,615	213	€689,741	184	€654,685	56	€316,457	666	€2,350,499
CBO3	207	€488,203	185	€492,240	119	€1,333,003	137	€2,429,143	648	€4,742,589
CBO4	184	€497,373	174	€507,708	156	€505,512	27	€128,958	541	€1,639,550
CBO5	151	€410,515	132	€396,205	86	€273,570	33	€153,029	402	€1,233,320
CBO6	130	€416,629	114	€373,430	61	€226,037	31	€132,584	336	€1,148,680
CBO7	93	€279,090	80	€244,285	58	€571,885	36	€512,077	267	€1,607,337
CBO8	73	€219,325	78	€213,946	61	€169,719	17	€83,152	229	€686,142
CBO9	78	€166,117	60	€131,481	50	€129,057	14	€66,302	202	€492,958
CBO10	84	€242,419	54	€185,904	42	€128,079	20	€96,275	200	€652,678
CBO11	80	€158,271	52	€113,085	31	€100,950	12	€72,879	175	€445,185
CBO12	72	€171,877	48	€134,297	31	€103,281	16	€50,915	167	€460,370
CBO13	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	€5,961	14	€40,325
Total	6,884	€17,646,694	6,894	€26,205,073	5,720	€43,456,525	2,898	€40,210,852	22,396	€127,519,144

SEAI will be renewing its contract with Warmer Homes Scheme contractors in 2020, which will require all contractors to be able to deliver all measures, deeper and shallow. SEAI is encouraging all CBOs to apply for this contract and has been working with CBOs over the past year supporting them in up-skilling and gaining experience to help ensure they can compete for the 2020 contract and that their organisations remain viable.

A budget of €52.8 million has been allocated to the Scheme for 2020. This represents the biggest ever budget for the Warmer Homes Scheme – more than double the initial allocation for 2019.