Claire Byrne Live (RTE1)

Hopefully the former so they can burn all these **** props after

If we take the green approach simply spending €70k retrofitting your home is the solution, payback should be achieved around 70 years time.

Not great for the seller if bids are not transparent.

I will gladly buy up all houses within one mile of the coast for 20% of their current asking price.

Another "new normal" on the way it seems...

Get there on your bike and then find your bike gone when you get back to it as some scrote has stole it with an angle grinder.

Her basic point was that people drive absolutely everywhere and are exceedingly lazy, except she didn’t quite put it like that. It’s hard to disagree.

All I can say after zooming into a photo of the telly-shot someone sent me on WhatsApp, I’m going to invest in padding to camouflage me prominences. 😱

I remember a couple of years back on Eco Eye they visited the home of some bachelor lad in his 70's living in the complete back arse of nowhere house with an energy rating so poor it was off the scale and they told him what he would need to do with his home to make it more eco friendly, the show was a complete disgrace and abuse of power on the man. They dictated what he should do to reduce his emissions, what he should use to heat his home etc, the man was living a good mile plus from anyone burning his turf, coal and was happy out with his expenses, he would be long dead before any of their waffle would make any financial benefit to him. Meanwhile last season or so a family in Donaghmede, North Dublin blow €70k plus of a budget in a highly congested area and they fit a wood burning stove in the home and still get the massive grant, crooked as absolute fook.

Anyone advising installing a wood burning stove in a built up area should be in jail with what is known now on particute matter.

The show is sponsored by state agencies and should be audited by someone independent to see what in the jaysus it is advising, it's up there with cash for ash in what controls are there for State money to go.

Should see the bidding system in Scotland. I once contemplated buying in Edinburgh and got to know about their system of written bids by envelope. It is actually very fair in principal, but I haven’t scrutinised closely how it pans out in practice.

That Eco Eye program with Donkey Stewart is basically a 30 minute advertisement for the retrofit & renewables industry. The end credits say it is supported by the SEAI so its them who are funding it. Must be great that the retrofit industry have a half an hour long ad on tv with Donkey raving on about how great every eco product is and sure you can get a grant for this and a grant for that. What he wont be saying is most of these companies have raised up the prices of anything that attracts a grant so they get it for themselves.

Its interesting the way government agencies are now getting tv programs made to try to sell whatever wares they are promoting. Another one is Nevin Maguires Irish Seafood Trails which only features fish dishes. If you look at the credits at the end the program is made for the Fisheries Board, another government quango. So that too is basically a 30 minute long ad trying to get people to buy more fish. Then you had Kathryn Thomas No Place Like Home, this time sponsored by Failte Ireland in an effort to get people to 'staycation' and be ripped off by the prices of Irish hotels.