Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I really appreciate them and they have highlighted some aspects I was not aware of. They also made clear some issues I was aware of, particularly relating to the average earnings and the input to the budget. We still have not got an explanation, as Ms Loughran said.

I will dovetail a bit to the PBO report we discussed earlier on universal payments and linking them with taxation. Mr. Moynihan mentioned auditing and how that has streamlined it in taxation. I will certainly be raising some of these issues, and I know other members of the committee will, around how we can deal with the issues of means-testing, universal payments, etc., and how to design a better payroll to make it easier for people to access payments.

Mr. Moynihan talked about energy poverty. We had a good few people, obviously older people, who had energy bills of more than €1,000 that built up during the inflation crisis and so on. They are still trying to deal with them. What link has ALONE had with Departments on retrofitting its complexes? That would be an important aspect of dealing with energy poverty. Do organisations such as ALONE get specific access to monies to retrofit? For example, the building at Willie Bermingham Place, which is in my own area of Dublin South Central, must be there nearly 50 years. I have been down to the complex and it needs serious retrofitting to save energy for those tenants in the building. Can Mr. Moynihan advise if ALONE has direct funding to do retrofitting in its complexes? If not, what can we do to ensure that does happen? That is key to me, for both energy poverty and general climate protection.