Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Last year, a number of people made applications for fuel allowance who were only a few euro above the threshold. I find it difficult that we stop such people from getting €22.50 a week because they are €2 or €5 a week over the scheme limit. I looked into perhaps knocking that €5 off and giving them €17.50, or finding some other way to address what I felt was an anomaly. Unfortunately, when one gets down to brass tacks, there has to be a cut-off point somewhere. Moving that cut-off point will only create a new cut-off point, which will not fix the problem because there will always be people outside of it. I appreciate that something needs to be done, such as perhaps introducing a sliding scale. It would be valuable if we did something along those lines this year.

See this speech in context