 Hi everyone good afternoon. I won't spend too long speaking about energy efficiency policy in Ireland And that it's pretty well known and I think with the recent publication of the all-of-government action plan It has hit on our radars as never before And I think a couple of key points with regard to residential energy efficiency Is that there is a recognition there that it is not just energy efficiency that we must seek it is also Decarbonization so alongside a target of 500,000 homes to be to standard by 2030 There is this parallel ask of 400,000 heat pumps and this is a recognition that it's not just a reduction in the kilowatt hour that we need It is a decarbonization also of that kilowatt hour And this is of course on the assumption that we decarbonize our energy generation electricity in particular But Ireland has come a long way to do that over the last number of years and in fact it is one of the successes Of which we need to be proud That we have met some of those targets in the last 10 to 12 year period Personally a couple of the key questions around retrofit in my mind remain about volume and depth So I think that the technologies that we need to use to achieve retrofit in our building stock are largely there They're largely well understood The supply chain both in terms of who understands the design and the building system within which these technologies will sit Is well understood The people on the ground in contracting firms Understand what is required of them to achieve the next level of retrofit or they understand the gap in their workforce Or in their level of skills And I also think that in terms of the technologies themselves we've started to reach perhaps a point of diminishing returns And so what we need to look at now is volume. How do we increase volume? How do we increase the appetite for this sort of activity? How do we increase demand for this sort of activity and also in terms of cost? How do we reduce that cost so on Ireland right now? There is a premium for these technologies. We're just starting to use them We don't have that volume So separately we also then need to consider area-based aggregation If we can get a group of contractors to perform a set of works in a specific area They will use one team. They will use one set of skips Mobilization and demobilization costs will be significantly less and we see certain examples of that on the continent when you're performing these works How can you create as much efficiency as possibly possible in the supply chain? And I think if you can create that area-based demand and area-based interest you address one of the other concerns Which is around appetite in the marketplace and we talk about appetite. It's important to recognize that consumer salience differs So mobile phone technology providers can convince humanity that an iPhone 10 is worth one thousand dollars Only some people can buy that phone and some people can't buy that phone When we talk about retrofitting our building stock, we're talking about some people in a significantly low-income demographic Some in the mid-tier, some in the higher-tier And for those people even understanding the value of performing those works is dramatically different Some people will have a social and environmental conscience Other people will look at their fuel bill at the end of the month and other people are somewhere in between in terms of their motivation That then leads to the second part Even assuming you create that demand that consumer salience that I value the health and well-being. I value the reduction in my energy bill I value the CO2 ton. I'm going to save even if you get everybody over that line How do you then facilitate that and let's again pretend that we have solved the technological supply chain and advisory challenge And what remains is finance. So again, you're dealing with different demographics different psychology different sociology in Different micro regions within Ireland in terms of how people approach this So there's a grant in certain cases tied to an annual economic demand an annual expenditure budget with the positives and negatives surrounding that Do you look at low-interest interest finance through high-street banks or the Trusted Credit Unions? Do you look at taxation like the HRI? Do you look at on-bill payment where our energy suppliers have a significant opportunity also perhaps significant risk? But someone could perhaps finance something over a longer period of time Or do you look at own resources and for that top-end demographic to you just say this is just the right place to put your euro For return on investment given your portfolio of other investments What's important to me is that no single bullet will solve the challenge. We don't have a single demographic We don't have a single consumer salience around these sorts of activities and we need to recognize that and recognize it quickly There is a place for probably all of these forms of finance But what is common among them is the supply chain that delivers and I do believe that if you look at area-based aggregation It will inform that community spirit that socialization that understanding where peers talk to one another about this activity and Engage in finding out what the other person has done as some of our speakers will talk to you about later. Not out. I Think with regard to Ireland and our own challenging targets We do have a captive audience to a certain extent or a couple of pieces where we have an advantage So we have a significant grouping of social housing stock owned by the state and also publicly funded housing stock To understand what level that is at where it is Would allow us to answer a lot of questions It would allow us to plan for a 10-year investment portfolio towards 2030 and to say right We can now talk to the European investment bank because we have 137,000 homes that look exactly like this and this is how much they will cost to get us to 2030 or beyond Separately it really allows us to look at different types of methods of delivery So imagine going to a locality saying dear contractors I can give you 50 of these homes that look precisely like this It is up to you to recruit and other 40 homes from the private homes in this area now bid and Competitively do it because you have the competency you have the contacts in the locality and we will help you help those people understand What is going along there? So I think that Certain aspects of this are now going to be examined to the all-of-government action plan And I do think there's an opportunity there I would also state that if we managed to harness that publicly owned and publicly funded stock And we look at a gearing with the private stock. There's lots of opportunity there should we have a counter cyclical in the economy? If we have a 10-year investment portfolio that we can talk to others about We can change that ratio over a period of time We can retain skills by turning up the publicly owned and the publicly funded housing stock and dialing down that private stock Where there might be less consumer appetite and less finance frankly brought to that end of the scale So we shouldn't forget that there will be peaks and troughs and On that positive note where I do believe there are significant solutions as different Elements to I suppose the jigs that we would have previously considered risks that we can turn to our advantage now I'd like to call up our panelists who will have different perspectives on this So firstly Brian Montaigne is manager with ESB for ESB eHeat Ali Sheridan is the sustainability lead with Ikea and we have Mike Pearson from Gerton Agricultural College So if you'd like to come up the stage, we'll kick off