{"id":403988,"date":"2026-03-26T00:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/403988\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:13:13","slug":"authors-of-report-that-sparked-retrofit-row-say-retrofitting-is-vital-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/403988\/","title":{"rendered":"Authors of report that sparked retrofit row say retrofitting is vital \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The authors of a report interpreted as casting doubt<\/a> on the point of retrofitting<\/a> have told TDs and senators they believe retrofits are essential. <\/p>\n

Dr Muireann Lynch and Prof Niall Farrell, of the Economic and Social Research Institute<\/a> (ESRI), appeared before the Oireachtas<\/a> Committee on Climate Action on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Their appearance followed the publication last week of research that sparked public debate and political rows after it showed the national retrofit plan was far behind schedule and retrofitted homes were not delivering the energy or greenhouse gas emission savings predicted. <\/p>\n

They told the committee these concerns remained, but the point of their report was to examine the limitations of the retrofit plan and suggest complementary approaches to reducing household emissions. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone serious about climate action says we need the whole residential sector electrified [through retrofitting gas- and oil-heated homes with electric heat pumps],\u201d Lynch said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll we were trying to say was we are not going to get there as fast as we need to. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we retrofit 500,000 houses [the national target], we have about two million homes in the country, so what will the others be doing? <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 700,000 homes that burn kerosene. That\u2019s a really high proportion. It would be a lower-carbon solution if they burned gas instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said previous research showed 13 per cent of oil-reliant households would willingly switch to gas if it was available but the connection fee was a deterrent. <\/p>\n

She acknowledged concerns that switching fossil fuel reliant homes to another form of fossil fuels could lead to fossil fuel \u201clock-in\u201d but said it was an option for reducing emissions in the short term. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s if we don\u2019t get to electrification on time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about additional supplementary bridging measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland falling well short of its retrofit targets, ESRI report findsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Lynch and Farrell said the data showing energy savings from retrofitting did not live up to their promise came from international studies because little Irish data was available. <\/p>\n

They said they needed real-life, real-time data to track how households used their heating and other appliances and when and for how long they opened and closed doors and windows but this would require multiple sensors and permissions. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would love to get better granular data about what\u2019s happening in homes pre- and post-retrofit but it is incredibly difficult,\u201d Farrell said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen data is personal, it takes several years to set up all the approvals and permissions.\u201d <\/p>\n

The committee\u2019s chairman, Fine Gael TD Naoise \u00d3 Muir\u00ed, suggested it could be made a condition of retrofitting grants that energy usage data be provided in return. <\/p>\n

Lynch said that would be a big help. She added she would also like people who get electric vehicle<\/a> grants to be required to supply their Eircode<\/a> for future research. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The authors of a report interpreted as casting doubt on the point of retrofitting have told TDs and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,24077,86125,18,8888,19,17,4766,81744],"class_list":["post-403988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-economic-social-research-institute-esri","tag-eircode","tag-eire","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-oireachtas","tag-retrofitting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116292590224888080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}