Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I would like to follow up on what my colleague, Deputy O'Rourke, said about the €200 electricity rebate and the €20 million being moved from that. We were contacted by the National Traveller Money Advice and Budgeting Service about this. There may be only one meter on a halting site. The families there get one €200 rebate even though there might have been several families paying for the electricity. I do not think it is beyond the abilities of the Government to contact the local authorities across the State to find out how many halting sites this applied to and how many families are using electricity from one meter and to give each family a €200 rebate. I would like to know why that has not been done.

I also wish to raise the fact that we are moving money that was ring-fenced for retrofitting. I brought this up with the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, last Thursday. We were always told that the carbon tax revenue is ring-fenced, but in this instance it is not being ring-fenced but is going towards infrastructure for fossil fuels, I believe. We have to address that. It should not be addressed from the money that was ring-fenced for retrofitting. Public trust is affected when we are told that money is being ring-fenced and then it is moved to a different item. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. The Minister of State said that these are not missed targets, but they are. We might catch up, but if we are to catch up why is this revenue not being kept for retrofitting? Could the Minister of State explain those two things to me?