A government plan to ban new installations of gas and oil boilers in new and existing homes has been slammed as “lunacy” by one TD.
Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice said this morning (Friday, September 2) that the plans are currently being finalised by government, and that the ban will apply to newly built houses from next year and to replacement installations in existing homes possibly as soon as 2025.
“The government’s proposal literally could not come at a worse time. ‘Middle Ireland’ is being squeezed from every side with 30% of homes spending 10% of their income on home heating,” he said.
“Spinning this move as a response to the energy crisis is disingenuous.”
“I honestly don’t know what [Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications] Eamon Ryan is thinking. His own department administers a warmer homes scheme which currently supports retrofitting projects, 95% of which install oil and gas heating systems,” Fitzmaurice said.
The Roscommon-Galway TD added: “At present, the Department of Education will not give schools a grant to upgrade their heating systems unless they install a gas boiler.”
He claimed that if the proposed ban is implemented, it will “cripple ordinary people”.
“People whose incomes are squeezed already as they try to pay rent or mortgages and as they try to put children through school and college.”
He called on the two larger parties in the government coalition to prevent the proposed ban going ahead.
“While this is a Green Party agenda, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael cannot sit idly by as people who have kept this country afloat through good times and bad are hammered by a lunatic proposal that makes less than no sense,” Fitzmaurice argued.
He called on the government to bring the people with them with “common sense proposals that people can get behind”.
Fitzmaurice remarked: “Good ideas don’t require bans to make them a reality.”