Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A couple of other issues arise, including the cross-Border element of this. As I understand it, the sulphur level of coal in the North is lower. There were reports last year of lorries from the North delivering coal to areas as far away as Cork. This tax could exacerbate that situation. I raise that issue because I support cross-Border trade. However, there are different regulations in both jurisdictions in terms of sulphur content.

I would like to focus on the issue of fuel poverty. The Minister is correct that Sustainable Energy Ireland has put in place schemes to assist people. He also quoted figures in regard to how many people have availed of those schemes. However, I draw the Minister's attention to the detail of those schemes. As a matter of interest, my home heating system broke recently and I had to upgrade it. If memory serves me correctly, people wishing to avail of the SEI grant must meet the first €2,500 cost of upgrading their system. It would not cost that amount to install thermostats on radiators so as to control which rooms one wants to heat and so on.

People in fuel poverty cannot afford to make this outlay. They cannot afford to spend €2,500 to avail of the grant. The Government needs to consider a more ambitious way to assist people. This taxes what the Minister calls a dirty fuel, and we do not dispute this, but it does not deal with the symptoms of the problem. People in huge houses which are not energy efficient do not have the money to spend on upgrading their system to be able to reach the threshold to get part of it back through the Sustainable Energy Ireland grants, which are very good if one has the money to spend. This pushes those who fall into this category further into fuel poverty.

Given that fuel poverty is a big issue, and various Ministers have spoken about it, has any analysis been done on the impact on it of the increase of carbon taxes on solid fuels? Given that we have seen this trend, is the Department willing to examine, or at least ask the Department of Social Protection to carry out some analysis, on the impact on fuel poverty of these measures and come up with imaginative ways to try to address or offset the impact of the increase in carbon taxes?