Mr. Aidan O'Connor:

Programmes were developed by the Department which were to be energy efficiency programmes and a percentage of the money - it was not 100% funding - was supplied by the Department. In terms of decision making, ranges of criteria were supplied to the local authorities and it was up to them to implement that. The Department does not implement the schemes. The responsibility rests with the local authority official, who should examine those ranges and decide what is the most suitable for a particular place. If it was upgrading, the entire house should have been adequately upgraded. I presume the entire house was adequately insulated. If people are retreating into one room it is a case of fuel poverty. When people can only afford a bag of coal or other solid fuel, they can buy by the bag. That is often a cost-inefficient way of heating a home, but that may be the way people have to budget. The local authority should have taken account of the fuel poverty issue.