"Green" policies are destroying this country

A mother-of-two from Dublin has criticised the Government for not raising the threshold for retrofitting grants far enough as part of its Budget 2023 measures.

Rebecca O’Reilly wants to retrofit her home in Ballyfermot to make it more energy-efficient.

She works full time but despite being on a lower income, Ms O’Reilly would be forced to pay a prohibitive fee of €15,000 upfront if she wants to make the necessary changes to her home.

Ms O’Reilly, a single mother to a six-year-old and three-year-old, can access grants to cover up to 51pc of the cost of a deep retrofit but said she cannot afford to pay the upfront fees.

“My house is old and so it’s not the best in the sense of retaining heat,” she said. “In the winter, it can get really cold in the house.

"So I thought I would look into the retrofitting and see what the grants are and if they could maybe help.

“To get a free-of-charge grant you have to be on social welfare payments, which I don’t receive.

“If I was to get the retrofit, it would cost me €12,000 to €15,000 upfront.

“The bottom line is if I wanted to get anything retrofitted in my house to help with efficiency and energy and get rid of the mould in the house, I’d have to have between €12,000 and €15,000, which is not something that I have.

“It’s unfortunate because I’m trying to do things the right way; I’m working full time and trying to show my kids it’s good to be out there working and not having to rely on social welfare.

“If I was to pack my job in and just rely on the Government, then I can get the house retrofitted, which just seems a bit backwards in my opinion.

“I find that these grants are always helping either those on a very low income or those on full social welfare support.

"Then there are people that can afford it because they are on a higher-end salary and then there are those in the middle ground, where there’s no help.

“I am on the lower middle where I am just over that threshold

“If I reduced my hours and got social welfare then I could get the grant but then I wouldn’t have as much money coming in to the house.

“You try and do things the right way. There’s also an attitude of a single parent taking money from the Government. I want to get it up to an A or B rating because at the moment, when I knock the heating off, it’s cold after half an hour.

"If the house was efficient, it would hold the heat.

“The payment up front is just not feasible,” she said.

"The grant is brilliant but it’s only helping people who have that kind of money up front. It’s not helping the people who really need it.

“I am dreading winter and the bills. With Christmas and everything else, if I didn’t have my family’s support, it would be very difficult but I shouldn’t have to rely on them.”

Thats the green for you, total incompetence.

The thinking from the department of finance is Keynesian multiplier effect, in that view of the world saving for a rainy day is bad, the citizen must be ecouraged to spend ASAP to stimulate the economy and so doing boost employment and tax revenue. That's why the quality of work does not matter.

This is how green dream increasingly looks like...

The Department of Lethargy strikes again! Low cost loans for retrofitting which were announced in February 2022 and originally to be in place in the summer, are now kicked down the road until next year. Incredible that they have missed an entire year and winter.

Knock that and ye can say bye bye to those 3 chimneys. Split the place into 3 nice air tight units, 3 stoves with back boilers and get a turf bank somewhere nearby. Toasty. Fvck Eamo, his policies and his deluded followers.

While welcome this wasn't really the issue. The affordability and the completely inadequate grants are making the move to solar unaffordable for most. Inadequate grant levels, too much red tape with the SEAI and price gouging by installers needs to be tackled urgently if the government are serious about having solar PV on houses across the country.

Would people please get off this grants and subsidies nonsense. That money comes from taxpayers, it's pointless and wasteful to pay the second most highly paid public sector in Europe, to take money from taxpayers and then to give some of it back to installers.

That's what I thought. No payback within a lifetime. Luckily my house isn't G rated, but if it was, those renovation costs exceed the market value of the house and land.

We have a Green Party Minister that cannot even organise a loan scheme and there are greens who believe we should hock the State to borrow money to add unknown levels of renewable capacity at an unknown price to solve the problem of intermittent unreliable renewables.

Does anybody in that party or their supporters have a clue about finance. They have all the appearance of responsibility as a bunch of 4 year olds let loose in a sweet shop.

It might even go some way to explaining some of his more inane utterances as well