The Galway Warm Home Hub closure is a major loss to local communities seeking advice on Greener homes, and a blow to Galway City Council’s Decarbonisation Plan, which is supposed to run to 2030, according to Fianna Fáil Galway West TD John Connolly.
He raised his concerns about the recent closure of the hub during a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural, and Community Development. He is calling for the Hub, located in the Westside Resource Centre, to be reinstated, or for a replacement scheme to be implemented.
The Warm Home Hub directly supported homeowners in transforming residences into sustainable, energy-efficient healthier homes. Established under the EU NetZeroCities Pilot Programme, it was regarded as a key part of Galway City Council’s Decarbonation and Climate Action plans.
Its future looked promising when the Department of the Enviroment provided funding of €30,000 – matched by a further €30,000 from Galway City Council – enabling it to continue until December.
However, the Hub closed last month with no further funding scheduled from Central Goverment, a situation described by Derek Pender, Director of Services at the City Council’s NetZeroCities Project, as “a huge loss to the City Council, a huge loss to Westside, and a huge loss to the Decarbonisation Zone and the learnings alone that came through that”.
Dep. Connolly noted that the closure has both practical and policy consequences. “I was able to refer constituents to the Warm Home Hub when they came to me to ask me about retrofitting their homes – both local authority and private houses,” he said. “The staff were in a position to help, and they facilitated people who didn’t reside in the Decarbonation Zone. They did that willfully and very generously”.
He also expressed concern that the Hub’s closure could negatively impact the local authority’s Decarbonaion Plan.
“I recognise the work that has been done in retrofitting public buildings and the enhancement of public lighting in the community, ” he said, “but the greatest ambition was in the retrofitting of homes, and there was an ambition to retrofit 170 social houses in the Decarbonised Zone in Westside. What is going to happen with that now?”
Dep. Connolly said the Westside Hub “was progressive and it worked” and that it served as a model to other areas in the State implementing similar systems. “We need to keep the City Council’s Decarbonisation and Climate Action plans running,” he said. “The Hub was important in this as it directly affected and benefited residential communities.”
He said the Hub can only have a future if it receives part or whole funding from Central Government, and he has urged his Government colleagues to examine this scheme. “It needs to be reinstated and supported,” he said, “as Greener communities and homes are not a luxury, they are a vital segment in the overall segment in the overall challenge of facing the reality of Climate Change.”
