Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for bringing this matter to the attention of the House. The national fuel scheme is intended to help households that depend on long-term social welfare benefits and are unable to provide fully for their own heating needs. The estimated provision for 2012 is €214.3 million. At the end of the fuel season last April, in excess of 400,000 customers were in receipt of the fuel allowance. It is important to note that all recipients of the fuel allowance will receive their correct number of payments during the 2012 calendar year, that is, for 26 weeks, and consequently no customer has been short-changed. However, an error in the timeframe for delivery did occur and I will now set out the details.

In budget 2012, the number of weeks in which the fuel allowance is payable was reduced from 32 to 26 weeks. Under these arrangements, the fuel season for 2011-12 was due to end in early April. However, due to an inadvertent error in the application of the changes to the cohort of customers paid from the Department's ISTS system, the original fuel season termination date remained in place for approximately 60,000 jobseeker customers for one week longer and a further payment issued in the week ending 6 April 2012. This resulted in an overpayment of €20 per client at an overall cost to the Exchequer of approximately €1.2 million. Under Government accounting procedures, the Department is obliged to recover all overpayments, in so far as is possible and feasible to so do, and of course the customer has had the additional benefit in this instance of the additional week's payment. The Department is doing this by delaying the commencement of the fuel payment season for those affected customers who still are in receipt of welfare payments by one week. For those customers who no longer are in receipt of scheme payments, this overpayment will be recorded against their account and in the event that in the future they again are in receipt of payments from the Department, the matter will be addressed with them at that point.

On behalf of the Minister, I apologise for this error, which is unfortunate. As stated however, it is important that it is explained to customers that all recipients of the free fuel allowance will receive the correct number of payments during 2012, that is, for 26 weeks, and no customer has been at a loss. I note some have been overpaid in that they received an additional week early on. While I accept the situation is not ideal for those customers affected, the manner of recovery proposed is considered to be the one that will have least impact on the customer. The systems have been reviewed fully in the Department and measures taken to try to ensure there will be no recurrence of this type of difficulty in the future.

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