Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1990 > Committee of Public Accounts > Final Report - Appropriation Accounts 1988

APPENDIX 29

WESTERN PACKAGE ELECTRIFICATION SCHEME

1. The total number of applications received under the scheme from its beginning in 1981 to end-1988 was 7,319 of which 5,371 were approved for grant aid. During 1988, 521 applications were approved for grant-aid. When the 1988 Estimate of £900,000 was drawn up in the latter half of 1987 it had been anticipated that 660 applications would be approved in 1988. The lower than anticipated takeup of grants was due to a delay in securing formal EC approval to relax the rules of eligibility which was not, in the event, received until November, 1988.

2. There are no up-to-date statistics available on the number of domestic dwellings in the country without a supply of electricity. The last time such statistics were compiled (the 1971 Census) 5 per cent of households were stated to be without electricity. In planning subsequent census data it was felt unnecessary to gather such information as by then it was considered that the number of households without electricity supply would have been reduced considerably. It is the considered view of the ESB that a combination of the rural electrification scheme, the Western Package Scheme, the electricity supply programme to island communities and a general increase in living standards would have resulted in only a very small number of households now being without supply.

3. With particular reference to farm dwellings, the ESB have advised that there are now no more than about 800 unsupplied farm houses throughout the country. While they are unable to quantify precisely how many of these are involuntarily without service they estimate that the number is only a small fraction of the total.

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.