Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

It is a matter for the Private Residential Tenancies Board to ensure rental accommodation is adequate. I have not lost focus on the other side of this issue, as the Minister claims. The warmer home scheme is fantastic if one can manage to avail of it. The problem is one of accessibility. While the various penalties have all been introduced, action to introduce measures to assist people in ensuring their homes are warm has not kept pace. Everybody was hit with the carbon tax on 1 May regardless of income. Some can afford to insulate their homes and others cannot; my concern is that we have not bridged that gap.

The Minister says the report will be available soon, and I have no choice but to take him at his word. We have submitted questions time and again on this issue, and on each occasion the response was that the report would be published "soon". Can the Minister offer an assurance that a decision will be made in the autumn session to assist people on low incomes to meet the additional costs of the carbon tax?

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