Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

Is it not the case that the cuts to the fuel allowance the Minister is proposing and the cuts she has already indicated to the household benefits package are the sharp edge of an obscene attack on the most vulnerable sectors of our society and that despite soothing words about covering the cost of electricity and gas price increases the reality of these cuts is a matter of life and death for people? Is the Minister aware - I am sure she is - that there were 2,000 winter related deaths among elderly people, most of them pneumonia, colds and other winter related ailments? Is it not a fact that these cuts mean more people will die?

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