Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the guests and apologise that I missed the beginning of the meeting. I was in a meeting and in the Chamber as well.

I have a question I encountered through a constituent this week. It concerns fuel costs, as well as consequent delivery costs and inflation on goods. The gentleman in question was a haulier who wished to avail of the diesel rebate scheme. He has a number of lorries on the road and purchased around 100,000 l of fuel in the first three months of the year. The difficulty is the scheme is set up with the requirement that the haulier must purchase fuel in units of 2,000 l or more. This company's tank is 2,500 l. Sometimes with a contingency order, when the delivery arrives, the tank will not take 2,000 l. This means the delivery does not qualify for the rebate. If the lorry is on the road and running low, it may pull into a garage and use the DCI card or whatever to fill up. Why is the scheme set up in this way? Could it be altered in favour of small businesses, many of which are struggling with rising energy, fuel and other costs, by taking into account fuel bought on trade account or by debit card?

When was the €100 per week hauliers support scheme first paid out and to when was it backdated? The briefing note says it began on 11 March. Recently I was on local radio and a constituency colleague was trumpeting it and saying it was there, yet people were texting in to say they had not received it. That was on 29 March.