Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister very much for his opening statement and the detail provided. It is welcome on one level to see the NBP is progressing, and doing so at some pace. We still, however, get many people around the country very frustrated at the issues they are encountering. Everybody's individual issue is important to them. We also have businesses around the country, especially in rural areas, that have serious problems getting connectivity.

Sometimes they have seen the vans and the survey has been done. People have been observed out with monitors along the road and looking up at poles, and the residents and businesses think something is going to happen. Years go by and nothing arrives. I hope this additional funding will go some way towards bringing a conclusion to these issues because many people are really frustrated with this situation, particularly in rural areas. I hope we can see some development in this regard.

I would, however, just like to look a little at where this money is moving from. This is one of the issues. Particularly concerning is the fact that so much money is moving out of programme B, energy transformation. Almost €28 million was unspent in the residential community retrofit programme while almost €2.3 million remains unspent under energy research and residential retrofit. All these areas impact large numbers of people and businesses around the country wishing to get some bit of assistance with retrofitting, and insulation is the big aspect in this regard, and other facilities. They are on long waiting lists and finding it difficult to access the funding. Those most in need of funding living in the colder homes sometimes find with the existing funding streams that they cannot make any progress because they do not have the matching funding required and cannot get loans for this type of work. The result is that these people are in serious difficulty now. There needs to be a re-examination of this funding, and I would welcome the Minister's comments, positive ones hopefully, in respect of whether something can be done to broaden it out to ensure those people in the most need can access it.

I would also like to understand why the National Cyber Security Centre had underspending of €3.5 million. Again, this is an area where we have had major problems that have cost the State significant money in regard to cyberattacks.

I would like to understand how there can be such large overspends in some of the particular programmes that are set out here. If the Minister were able to enlighten us on some of that, I would be grateful.