Dr. Muireann Lynch:

There are a couple of things going on in terms of the differential between the subjective and the objective measure. If, say, one is spending a huge amount of one's income, net of housing costs, heating one’s swimming pool and sauna, technically, one would qualify under definition A as fuel poor but one will not answer that one has difficulty meeting one’s fuel bills, which is the reason one does not qualify under the subjective measure.

On the particular differential for retired single people, we do not know the reason 35.8% of them are spending more than 10% of their income on energy and yet are not reporting that they have difficulty meeting their bills. Presumably, it is because their income is such that they can meet their living costs within the remaining 90% in such a way that they do not feel they cannot afford their energy bills. The cohort the Deputy is particularly concerned about almost certainly fall into the 5.6% who are reporting that they have difficulty meeting their bills, and they also cannot access these grants.

I reiterate the point that measuring and targeting fuel poverty is very difficult but measuring and targeting poverty is possibly a more salient policy measure that might be one the committee would like to consider.