Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the progress that has been made on the scheme. I am glad we are making progress on the humanitarian scheme. It has been quite disappointing in many regards. There have been major difficulties with it for many of my constituents. It has been quite chaotic and haphazard. Many constituents of mine have got €200, others have got €10, and others have got nothing at all. In fairness to the Minister and Department, we have appealed a number of those and those appeals have overturned the decision. It has surely added a significant amount of bureaucracy for the Department, which I am sure is far from ideal. It seems the guidelines could have been administered much better. From our perspective, I would love to know what the guidelines were, so we can advise constituents. For example, a constituent of mine who is in his 80s was without power for two weeks and got a rejection letter. The letter stated that outages of under two days are not covered, when his power was out for two weeks. Another couple in their 80s are now on their third appeal. I will raise that with the Minister afterwards, if that is okay, and it is to be hoped we can rectify those issues.

I welcome that the scheme appears to have been extended. I raised this with the Taoiseach last week and I understand the scheme has been extended. It would be great to know what the deadline actually is so that we can engage with and advise our constituents. There is significant work to be done and I hope we can reform the scheme, particularly its deadlines, communication about the scheme and indeed reforming it for the next event that will happen. The scheme should be extended to cover business supports. The Minister's colleague mentioned there would be supports for businesses. That has been lacking, especially for farmers.

Regarding long-term prevention, we have made very little progress with the removal of trees on the line. We need to get that done quickly before the next storm. I know the Minister will be reviewing the matter of generators in the weeks and months ahead. The targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, for farmers provides for generators but those grants specifically state they have to be for farm sheds and so on. It is important to address this, especially for houses without chimneys and so on that need support and grants.

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