Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I congratulate Deputy Coveney and Deputy Enright on bringing this to the floor of the House. When we talk about fuel poverty or energy poverty, we must mention the sham that is going on in this country as far as elderly people are concerned. They are certainly not likely to get the same attention as the bankers are getting in the House this week.

I wish to provide a graphic outline to the House about how crazy this bureaucracy can go. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government announced a new grant scheme for older people which we all welcomed a few months ago. This scheme was supposed to ensure that people continued in their own house in slightly better conditions than they were used to until the end of their days. Every public representative is fully aware of those schemes. The local authority provided an essential repair grant and the disabled persons grant, while the local health board, as it then was, had something similar running in conjunction with these grants. We were told that the schemes would be rationalised and that the local authority would take over everything. The grants were increased a small bit and we were told that this was the right way to do things.

Since then, I do not think that a single grant has been drawn down under the new scheme, for no other reason than the fact that the county councils and the health boards were starved of cash. I know several elderly people aged between 75 and 80 who are waiting three and four years to replace their window or door, the very things that would save the energy we are talking about today. How can there be any sort of reasonable comfort for people if the basic parts of a house are damaged? If the roof is leaking or the door is falling down, how can we expect to conserve energy, no matter what scheme is in place? It simply will not happen.

There was a meeting last week of the HSE West and Galway County Council. It was hoped that agreement would be reached that the 365 applicants who were two years or more on the health board list would be transferred to Galway County Council, even though they were in arrears. When the meeting took place, the health board claimed it had received an extra 400 applicants for 2008, so it decided simply to hand them all over to the council. The council informed HSE West that it could not look after its own existing applicants, some of whom had applied three or four years ago. There are now almost 1,000 people in Galway who cannot get their windows or doors fixed, yet we talk tonight about a heating policy for the elderly.

There was a sort of increase in the fuel allowance when it was extended by a week. However, the cost of home heating oil has increased by 47% in the 12 months up to May 2008. How is it that if this increase was implemented when oil cost $147 per barrel, there has been no reduction since it dropped to $96 per barrel? I cannot understand how the regulator works this out. Surely one price would track the other. There is much work to be done, and the elderly need a great deal more attention than they are getting.

See this speech in context