Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the simplification. The Minister will be aware Sinn Féin has raised this issue on a number of occasions. My colleagues, Deputies Conway-Walsh, Kerrane and Mairéad Farrell and others, and I, have been raising this matter, so we are pleased the Government was listening and is going to act on it.

I encourage the Minister to engage with those businesses that use liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas and discuss the challenges they are facing. I understand the numbers may not stack up in terms of the other schemes but they are still under a fair amount of pressure. It would be a good opportunity for the Minister and the officials in his Department to hear directly from them. I know they feel aggrieved at being excluded from the scheme notwithstanding the reasons the Minister has given. As I said, we welcome the fact the Government has acted on a suggestion we made. We also welcome the fact it is going to be simplified because, as the Minister knows, there were issues with some of the other schemes, which were overly complicated for people to access. That news is welcome.

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