asked the Minister for Transport and Power if he will arrange to pay a substantial grant circa 50 per cent of the cost of installing generating sets for applicants in mountain areas who cannot obtain electricity supply due to the prohibitive cost.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Electricity Generation Grant.
25.
There are no funds at my disposal from which a special grant could be made available towards the purchase of generators for people in remote areas.
Would the Minister say whether there are any proposals before the Government to enable persons living in rural areas to get electricity in some form, particularly persons who cannot afford to pay the exorbitant ESB charges?
The whole question of electricity supply for persons in remote areas who are not already connected is at present being reviewed by the Department of Transport and Power in discussions with the ESB.
This may be an unfair question seeing that the Minister for Transport and Power is not here, but is the Minister aware, as a member of the Government, that this review has been going on for more than 12 months and that many people begin to doubt whether there is any hope of a positive result coming from this review? There are quite a number of persons building houses——
A brief question, please, Deputy.
——who have been asked to pay £1,000 for connection to the ESB and who are not in such remote areas.
The Deputy may not make a speech.
The review is in progress and the Minister will be making an announcement——
Does the Minister agree that the citizens of this country do not get electricity on equal terms, that even people who are supplied have to pay more in rural areas than they have to pay in urban areas, and that the electricity supply in rural areas is not as good as that provided in urban areas?
There are obvious difficulties in such supply in relation to remote and thinly populated areas. These are structural difficulties and any government must deal with them as best they can.
Does the Minister not agree that this is an unsatisfactory situation, that citizens have the same service, or a service that purports to be the same, provided at a different cost, a higher cost to the people of the rural areas?
I think the Deputy appreciates very well that in relation to many things there are different problems affecting citizens who live in thinly populated areas and who are in some way at a disadvantage, as is this, and citizens inhabiting heavily populated areas who, of course, have other disadvantages.
Does the Minister not accept that these extra costs in certain areas should be borne by the public generally rather than that people should be penalised for living in certain parts of the country?
I leave the answer to that kind of general question, as distinct from factual questions, to the Minister directly concerned.
Is the Minister aware that when the Fianna Fáil Government were in office, persons building new houses in rural areas were paid a subsidy which helped to reduce the cost of installing electricity in their homes, that persons now building new houses in rural areas do not have the benefit of a State subsidy and are being asked to carry the full cost of installing electricity in their homes?
That seems to be a different question.