Dr. Brian Motherway:

I will start with the Chairman's last question. In regard to home upgrades, those upgrades are delivered by two types of organisation, namely, private contractors that we procure through open tender or, particularly in the vulnerable sector, by a network of more than 20 community-based bodies which are usually not-for-profit community-owned organisations. Those organisations can be found in some counties and cities but not in others. We will use community-based organisations where they exist, with private contractors being used to fill in the rest.

The key issue for us - again, it is something we need the committee's help with it - is getting the word out there. This is particularly important in the case of our supports for vulnerable household, the main qualifying criterion for which is entitlement to the fuel allowance. We tend to find that where a locality has a community-based organisation, it often leads to higher uptake simply because there is higher awareness. In other instances we have to use other mechanisms to make people aware that they can come to us and ask for this service. The committee can be of assistance to us in this regard and we also co-operate with the Department of Social Protection in terms of sending out letters to targeted people. In addition, we use local media and advertising and any other means we can find to get the message out. Sometimes a trend is essentially about our success or otherwise in getting the word out to qualifying people.