Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I wish also to raise an issue affecting older people but not only older people. I refer to the unconscionably high increases in ESB and gas prices. Gas prices have increased by 33.8% from 1 October, in a country where, according to the report by Deloitte & Touche on regulation of the electricity sector, almost one in five Irish people is defined as fuel-poor. The Taoiseach can imagine the impact that a 34% increase in gas prices will have on older people, social welfare recipients, people with disability pensions and people on low incomes who do not receive any social welfare payment.

To coincide with this increase on the same day, 1 October, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, issued a formal statement to the effect that the value of the weekly fuel allowance under the national fuel scheme has been increased by €5, from €9 to €14, with a supplement of €3.90 on top of that for smokeless fuel. It is not unusual for Ministers to issue statements that are either incapable of being understood or that obfuscate or confuse. That is a cruelly dishonest statement because that €5 increase was announced in the budget last year. If one is accustomed to reading to the end of documents and does so one will pick that up.

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