Dr. Laura Bambrick:

I will jump in on the point on fuel allowance. As the Deputy mentioned, there were big changes to the fuel allowance qualifying requirements from January. A lot of the headlines were about the increase in the amount of weekly income a pensioner or pensioner couple could have and the amount of savings they could have. Those changes are valuable but a lot of people, as the Deputy probably knows from his clinics, were just over the threshold. They might get a small increase on their occupational pension, but that meant they could not get the fuel allowance. One of the significant changes that was brought in for the fuel allowance in January got little coverage. One of the qualifying requirements for over-70s is that you had to be in receipt of a weekly social welfare payment. This includes former civil servants or someone who might live in Kerry and who has worked abroad for years and does not have an Irish State pension. All of a sudden they might have been on modest incomes but they were not eligible for the fuel allowance. That changed in January and that is one of the big changes that will bring a lot of those 80,000 new applicants into the fuel allowance. If it is something the Deputy was not aware of, when he is talking to people who are coming into his clinics, talking about access will help a lot of people.

There was a lot of coverage yesterday and in the lead-up to the announcement of the cost-of-living measures about making working poor families that are in receipt of the family income supplement eligible for the fuel allowance. We would have concerns around that, while recognising that a lot of these families are working part-time hours and not being eligible for the fuel allowance. There are poverty and employment traps there so it would mean nearly €1,000 extra in fuel allowance going in over the course of the year. Then that becomes a disincentive for those workers to move on to full-time work or look for a promotion. The Department has to strike the balance between addressing a pressing need that people understandably have, especially during the cost-of-living crisis, and building in disincentives. It comes back to the point made earlier that when we have low-pay and low-hours employment and we have to match them up with weekly payments and weekly top-up payments, we have to make sure that is not building in disincentives and subsidising insecure and low-paid jobs. It is a difficult balance but a lot of positive work has been done on the over-70s and we would hope to see that built on.