Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Regarding the point Deputy Mairéad Farrell put to me about VAT, it is going to vary from business to business. Some businesses will pass it on while others will not. I know the VAT reduction is a move that Sinn Féin was supportive of. In my response to the Deputy about this point earlier, I specifically said I was not sure how the ESRI counted for the VAT move in this year's model. I thank her for reminding me, and for telling me what it did, but I also said that in last year's modelling of this, which did not take account of any reduction in pricing, because the VAT levels were unchanged, it still did find that the measures we took in last year's budget to offset the increase in carbon taxation did protect the most vulnerable. Our commitment to continue to do this is laid out in a programme for Government commitment. I will pass on to the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Heather Humphreys, the point on whether certain payments should be indexed as well, but it may be the case that new payments need to be created to deal with the challenge of continuing to protect families that have the lowest level of income from changes that are happening with carbon taxation.

In response to Deputy Naughten, we have covered off the issue concerning data centres. The reason more money was not put into the national broadband plan is because the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, told me that the main difficulty we have in accelerating the roll-out of the national broadband plan next year is the logistical difficulties of trying to accelerate the pace of work, rather than funding. If it is the case that funding can be put in place to accelerate the roll-out of the national broadband plan there will be other opportunities to fund it later in the year. The national broadband plan is the other piece in this jigsaw.

Regarding the point Deputy Naughten made about the €3 million, I did make reference to €20 million. Overall, the fund is €20 million. I did say that €3 million of it was coming from carbon price and carbon taxing again. It is a fair point. This may be the continuation of the €3 million from last year's budget but the €17 million extra is not.