The Government has published a strategy which aims to improve energy efficiency in the homes of people with acute health conditions, as well as help people in energy poverty achieve lower bills.

Minister for Energy, Alex White, published A Strategy to Combat Energy Poverty, which includes a €20 million pilot project.

Minister White said: "I am proud to be a member of the first Irish Government to establish and implement a strategy on energy poverty. Despite inheriting some of the most challenging economic circumstances of any administration, we published the first ever national strategy in 2011.

"Since then, more than €2 billion has been spent to support the incomes of people in energy poverty. We have improved the energy efficiency of 140,000 homes in energy poverty through targeted interventions, and we have placed new legal obligations on energy suppliers to ensure that they assist customers in energy poverty."

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The centrepiece of the strategy is a new €20m pilot scheme to provide free, deep energy efficiency interventions in the homes of people in energy poverty, who suffer acute health conditions and live in poorly insulated homes.

The scheme will start in March 2016 and will be expanded next year to target low-income households with young children – particularly one-parent families who experience the highest levels of deprivation.

The strategy also heralds a public consultation on proposals to introduce minimum energy efficiency standards for rental accommodation. This would mean that, in time, properties could not be let unless they had a BER certificate above a certain standard.

This would not be introduced before 2020, to give time for the property market to stabilise. It would then apply initially to new leases only, and it would be staged, starting with properties with the lowest BER rating.

(CD)