Mr. John Kinnane:

I will follow up on those comments. We had a brief discussion on price caps. Apart from anything else, the key driver is the price of the gas and oil. It would be very expensive and it is not targeted. The Government has decided to target lower income households through the social welfare system, particularly through the fuel allowance and the two lump sum payments that have been made under that scheme, and then to provide broad-based support through the energy credit and the reductions that have been made on the taxation side, which bring us through to the budget. It is a significant intervention. When one totals all the interventions, they come to just over €1 billion. They certainly go some way towards addressing the issue. The Government has set out the position that trying to compensate completely for all the price rises in energy would be a huge burden for the Exchequer to bear. Nonetheless, the intervention that has been made is still very significant.