Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is very useful but it was given universally, irrespective of a person's wealth. There is a way of targeting it. It is not perfect because a person could avail of the contributory pension and be very well-off, but taking all pensioners, they tend not to be as well-off as society in general. The €300 was an efficient way of paying it. I grant that and I never want to see it means-tested because it is a total waste of time. One way of targeting a group is through the electricity allowance.

The Minister mentioned the amount paid for television. My memory, which could be faulty, is that they disconnected that. In the old days, they used to pay the licence amount into the television licence, literally euro for euro, for every new person given the free television licence. My memory is it was changed from that to a lump sum.