Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

I do not need to tease out some of the information further as I just wanted to know the outturns. Where it is up to the Minister for Finance to decide on the amount, is the carbon tax not ring-fenced for particular projects? What really irritates people is that they are paying for something definite, which the carbon tax is, so the carbon tax should be about offsetting in a very demonstrable way the use of fossil fuels.

Second, is it likely the Minister will target people who receive the fuel allowance? There has been a cut of six weeks in the fuel allowance this year. It seems there is a certain element of reducing the impact on those houses, if the house meets the criteria for upgrading, but this is targeted in a certain way due to the impact on the fuel allowance. Is there any relationship with that? Is there a relationship with the Department of Social Protection? Does the information regarding payments such as the fuel allowance come from that Department? If not, can that happen?

See this speech in context