Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Many people living on our islands are not in receipt of fuel allowance because they have incomes. This is something we have been working hard to address over the years. There are huge extra costs involved in living on an island.

There were three parts to my question. One concerns the need for a higher rate of grants and the second relates to the maximum cost allowed. It is more expensive to do things on islands than to do them on the mainland. Therefore, the ceilings in place of €50,000, €2,000 and so on should be higher on the islands. The third issue is the turnover of contractors. There is no way one will find an island-based contractor, whose main focus is energy work on that island, who has a turnover of €1 million per year. Will the Minister address the second and third parts of my question?

I welcome his agreement to meet with the organisation to which I referred. The people involved have sent a letter to him and I hope the meeting will happen in the next few weeks. As he knows, islanders probably are the greatest enthusiasts in the country for making their part of the world carbon neutral.

See this speech in context