New incentives to help households to reduce their use of fossil fuels are to be considered by officials in the Department of Finance. In particular, according to Tánaiste Simon Harris, this will focus on possible once-off payments to support people with major spending commitments such as purchasing EVs or installing heat pumps as part of a housing upgrade or retrofit.
Harris is correct that the conflict in the Gulf has underlined Ireland’s exposure to imported fossil fuels and that households and businesses do need incentives to help make the transition to more renewable energy sources. However, it is unclear what the proposed new measures might amount to, in addition to the existing grants available from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and the State supports for purchasing and using EVs.
It is also worth noting that a range of promises have already been made ahead of the October budget – including income tax reductions, a new State savings scheme and new, unspecified energy supports – despite the uncertain economic outlook.
There are issues to be addressed in encouraging households to make the energy transition but care is needed in designing new measures. Incentives need to make a difference by encouraging households – particularly those with limited resources – to invest where they previously could not afford to.
As work by the Economic and Social Research Institute has shown, the issue of retrofitting and lowering the household carbon footprint is not straightforward and support needs to be focused where it can get the greatest return. Moving households away from home heating oil , for example, is one possible target.
The Gulf crisis does give the Government a chance to win greater public support for accelerating the move to renewables. But what is needed are focused incentives within a wider policy framework – and not cash hand-outs to try to win political favour.
