Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There are many strands to the Deputy's question and many different funding schemes. I will try my best in the time I have to assure the Deputy that we have constructed two different models in our Department to try to capture everyone with regard to energy costs. The Deputy mentioned the community and voluntary energy support scheme. We have reopened that as of Tuesday and tweaked it because there were groups that we were not catching. The Deputy might check in on the eligibility for that. There were some organisations that had a large number of community halls. For example, a Catholic diocese might have had 70 or 80 halls in an area. The system was not set up adequately to capture all of them in an efficient way so we tweaked that. It has been reopened until 20 January. There are other groups which we are keeping an eye on. We want to hear who is falling between the cracks. The support scheme that is being run through the local community development committees is aimed at capturing smaller groups which may not have legal status but which do good work and pay bills.

Depending on the programme and organisation, another Government Department might have the most relevant energy support scheme. I keep thinking of IRD Duhallow. It is the engine in Deputy Moynihan's area when it comes to much of the social inclusion work and I commend it. While I mentioned the increased SICAP allocation for 2023, the allocation for this year was 10%, which is the largest increase in allocation that SICAP has ever got. I secured it in last year's budget. I would like to hear if there are funding issues with SICAP. It should be adequately funded for this year. There are issues in using up some of the allocation for this year in other areas. If the Deputy can give me detail on who is falling through the cracks, we would like to hear it because we want to make sure that we capture everyone who is dealing with increased costs.

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