Mr. Robert Deegan:

The eligibility criteria for the scheme are kept under ongoing review. On the previous Deputy's point, we have ongoing conversations with the Department of Social Protection because effectively we piggyback on its eligibility criteria for the fuel allowance. Jobseeker's allowance, working family payment, one-parent family payment, domiciliary care allowance and disability allowance are the payments that currently qualify. The invalidity pension is a social insurance payment as opposed to a means-tested payment. In recent years, the emphasis for any expansion has been on the means-tested payments as opposed to the non-means-tested ones. People who are in receipt of invalidity pension are often in receipt of or eligible for the fuel allowance and other social protection payments. When they ask us the question about it, we always encourage them to apply for those other means-tested payments in the first instance so they get the financial support and the secondary support of the warmer homes scheme. We keep this under ongoing review. It is not completely closed, but the policy direction in recent years has very much been to ensure we target in the best possible way and the best way to target is through means testing to ensure that the people who can least afford fuel are the people who get the allowance. That has been the rationale for the existing eligibility criteria.