As part of last year's budget, the Government introduced an enhanced electricity credit of €600 that was applied to electricity bills. However, many in the Traveller community were left behind as they did not receive this energy credit. Despite engagement between the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, and the National Traveller Money Advice and Budgetary Service, MABS, the issue has still not been resolved. Many families have missed out on a credit that would have eased a significant financial burden during this cost-of-living crisis. There was no bother in this credit making its way to those who not in need of it, such as TDs, high net worth individuals and multimillionaires. With next week's budget looming, what is the Government going to do to ensure that every Traveller household that missed out on a credit last year is issued with a credit as soon as possible? What will it do to ensure that it does not happen again next week?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which is important. Energy credits were introduced as part of emergency legislation last year. The Cabinet agreed on a special allocation to make sure that the money reached Travellers. The way that was done was that the money was sent to the local authorities. Each local authority was asked to state how many Traveller families it had. A sufficient quantity of money was sent to each local authority to distribute it. After that, I met with Traveller MABS and other Traveller representative organisations to discuss individual cases where they had not managed to receive the payment. We have traced down and carried out investigations to try to find any cases where that has not happened. New legislation will be passed this autumn to support any electricity credit that happens. It will be different from previous legislation and will take specific account of the specific needs of Travellers, not all of whom have their own electricity meter.