Dr Paul Dean

But unfortunately, look, it's a big upfront payment.

And the challenge for people who are really struggling at the moment, if you're in energy poverty at the moment, you can't plan for the future.

You prioritize the immediate.

And the idea of, you know, having 50,000 or 60,000 euros available for your home, for your home energy upgrade, you know, that's out of reach of most people.

So I think we do need to be more innovative, more creative in making more financial options.

And also,

the people who are on the lowest level of income do need the highest level of direct support.

Yeah, and I think a big challenge here, Dave, is just spreading those costs over longer periods of time.

And as you're correct, look, solar is one of those really good ways that works really well.

And look, whatever about saving the planet, people want to save money.

And solar is one of those things that is a very obvious way for...

putting a big dent in your electricity bills over the period from April to September.

Now, you're still going to be facing high electricity bills in December and in the winter months.

One of the things, David, I think we should be exploring here in Ireland, particularly around home heating, and this is an idea that they're looking at in the UK.

It's an idea called project-linked finance.

This means if you want to retrofit your home, which costs, let's just say, €60,000 to €70,000, a huge outlay of money,

that that loan is linked to the property rather than to the person.

So that means that the loan is paid back over a much longer period, over the lifetime of the property, let's say 80 to 100 years, rather than the economic lifetime of the person.

And what that does, David, it doesn't reduce the cost, but it spreads the payback over a much longer period.

So if you're living in a home