Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Department is co-operating with a number of organisations, including Sustainable Energy Ireland, the Combat Poverty Agency and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, on making homes warmer. We are funding one of the projects in that regard. It is an action research project which obviously will help to feed into future policy. I have already mentioned the fuel allowance which is available to people under general social welfare payments. The free units people get are not affected by the price of fuel because they get those units irrespective of the price. Some 350,000 pensioners get the household benefit and need not worry about the cost of that scheme.

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