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

I will answer the last question first. I recall there were significant efforts made by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications in relation to prepay meters. You should not be without the payment if you are on a prepay meter. We can talk about specific circumstances later but there was a separate fund set up in that Department for that.

I acknowledge the Deputy's point about universal measures. Additional needs payments are obviously very targeted, as is the heating supplement. I take his point about publicity on board. I believe there was a campaign last year that raised the number of applications. For the Deputy's information, in a point that also relates to the cohort of people we are discussing, we are currently examining developing research with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, on people in persistent poverty. It is not consistent poverty, but persistent poverty, that is, people in circumstances in which year on year and decade on decade, they still find themselves in poverty. We are aware there is a group of people who need additional help and we are examining that further with work this year.

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