Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Let me answer the question. As I said, we have committed €50 million for local authority homes alone and there is also €18 million for the improvement of the warmer homes scheme. This is not a short-term problem. The issue of high fuel prices and the cost of fuel is not one that can or should be dealt with on a short-term basis. We all know from experience that the price of fuel goes up and down again. Unfortunately, in recent years it has been going up, largely because oil and gas are scarce resources, they are in places that are hard to get to, they must come a long way to get here and we are subject to international pricing. The best way to address this in the long term is to carry out the retrofitting programme that we have set out and to concentrate it in the first instance on families on lower incomes. That is what gets down the cost of heating homes-----

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