Ireland’s home heating landscape presents particular challenges when it comes to making our national drive for carbon neutrality a reality, as the Central Statistics Office’s figures make clear. Members of the Alliance for Zero Carbon Heating are proud of the role they have played in meeting these essential and vital needs for generations, just as we are proud of the role that our industry personnel continues to play in carrying out 20,000 boiler upgrades each year: each of which helps to achieve CO2 emissions of almost 20%. Far more needs to be done, and we are determined to do it.

Currently, almost 700,000 Irish homes are heated by oil-fired systems. We are more than twice as reliant on liquid fuels for home heating compared to our counterparts in the European Union, and across broad swathes of the countryside, the overwhelming majority of homes currently rely on kerosene.

As part of its plans to reduce emissions, the Government has committed to installing 600,000 heat pumps by 2030, but all indications are that they are falling far, far short of meeting these targets. Although heat pumps can be a cost effective option for new homes, installing them in existing properties usually requires an expensive and time-consuming ‘deep retrofitting’ process, the average cost of which runs to €56,000: well outside the reach of most households.

Regardless of whether or not the Government’s retrofitting goals are achieved, hundreds of thousands of households will continue to rely on liquid fuels for decades to come, and many of those who cannot avail of the retrofitting option still wish to make a contribution to curbing emissions. We need to help them do this, and to do so, we need an all-of-the-above solution, and liquid fuels must be at the forefront of the change which is needed.

Reaching the State’s climate action targets will require a shared effort involving all stakeholders - we know that we need to transform the fuels that we provide, and we also know that solutions are available to do this.