Galway City Council will receive over €600,000 for the purpose of retrofitting social housing to make them more energy efficient.
The government has today announced €45 million in funding under the 2021 Energy Efficiency Retrofitting Programme for Social Housing.
Of that package €35 million has been divided between local authorities, with a goal of retrofitting a total of 1,293 homes.
Galway City Council will receive €606,998 of that, with a target of carrying out energy efficiency improvements
A further €10 million will be held back for those councils which are able to spend their full allocation this year, and could undertake additional work.
Of the funding package announced today €5.45 million of it was already allocated to eight councils in the Midlands for a pilot scheme in 2020.
That pilot scheme included €631,439 for Galway County Council, targeting 23 homes for retrofitting.
Minister for Housing and Local Government Darragh O’Brien said that the 2021 programme will see a “significant upscaling” of the work being done on the homes compared with past years, aiming to carry out deeper retrofitting works.
“We are being realistic in our initial allocation and taking account of the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the works which can take place.
“We are taking an equitable approach ensuring that allocations are calculated on the basis of the number of social housing units each local authority has, as a percentage of the overall national stock.”
The amount allocated to each council has also been determined by their ability to carry out works and draw down all funding this year.
Roughly 40% of Ireland’s energy-related carbon emissions come from buildings, and the government’s programme has set a target of retrofitting half a million home by 2030.of which it is expected that approximately 36,500 of those will be social housing.
Minister of State Peter Burke added that retrofitting is labour intensive work, and will help create “high-quality, sustainable jobs” in communities.
