Mr. Frank Maughan:

On the Senator's first question, what I said was the share of the overall fund Ireland would be allocated according to the proposal is roughly in line with our share of the EU population, but that is not a determining factor in the allocation key. The second question is really a matter of which statistics we would be expected to use in the preparation of the social climate plan to justify the proposed interventions. The Commission has chosen a number of different statistics to go about constructing the allocation key. The Senator is correct in identifying issues around the identification of households in fuel poverty. The data on that is not as clear but there is clearly much work to be done to negotiate this proposal and to determine how member states should be able to prepare a social climate plan and to justify their proposed interventions to the Commission as part of that social climate plan.

It is very early days in terms of the questions the Senator is raising about the statistics. This is one of the issues the Department will be delving into further in the months ahead as the negotiation progresses.