Sir, - Alan Burns’s letter on retrofitting and overheating was timely and to the point (“Those who can afford to retrofit can also afford to overheat their homes,” Letters, March 17th). In fact, it points to a two-tier society among those of us who are lucky enough to own our houses. The first group have vans outside their homes, scaffolding around the walls and busy workers fitting insulating material. Then there are those of us, pensioners, who retired over 20 years ago. We haven’t a hope in hell of getting a loan for home retrofitting, regardless of the available grants.

Source: The Irish Times March 19, 2026 15:03 UTC