Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I know all those factors and it is difficult to predict, but when Ms Ryan mentions 400,000 and then the actual takeup is 25,000 it is a huge gap. Has anything been learned about the design of those schemes? If we were to be in a similar situation in six months time, what should be done differently around the design of a scheme to increase the takeup? We had real difficulty in rural Ireland with the LPG exclusion because many retail businesses, restaurants and other small businesses do not have gas connections. Straight away, therefore, they were discriminated against. We were delighted then when there was a scheme, but we still found there were so many people who just could not meet the criteria. On the auditing of it, that is, Revenue's aspect of it, businesses were basically telling me they had all the evidence. It should not be a case of just having it metered. Businesses were absolutely convinced they had all the documentary evidence, which I saw, to be able to support the idea they were not trying to take advantage of the system or find a loophole. Is there anything the Department of Finance would do differently if the scheme was done again in future?