Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the tenor of the Deputy's question but I just want to say that nobody on this side of the House misled anybody. The reason why I insisted on moving ahead with the kerosene scheme was because I wanted to help businesses across rural Ireland in counties like that of the Deputy and others. There are many hotels, restaurants and so on which are not connected to the gas network and, therefore, were not able to get support for their increased heating bills which others who were connected to the gas network were able to get through TBESS. That is why we studied the market and looked at the increase at the time and dramatically simplified the application process for the kerosene scheme.

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It is much easier to apply for and there is a much shorter application process. Despite all that, only a few hundred companies are applying when we know that more than 20,000 use kerosene. Our focus for this month is to get those 20,000 businesses, or as many of them as we can, to apply for that scheme so we can get supports to them directly.

On the liquefied petroleum gas, LPG, issue, unless I can get definitive proof that the price increased by close to 30%, it is very hard for us to make the case to the European Commission that we should be making a market intervention. The data I have at the moment suggest the increase was only 19%.

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