Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

It is getting cold out there. Why is this country almost always near the top of the European league table for excess winter deaths? That number is consistently more than 1,000, sometimes as high as 1,500 and can go as high as 2,000. Can the Taoiseach explain why countries like Denmark or Norway consistently have a lower excess winter death per head of population figure than Ireland? Excess winter deaths are not just about the cold; they are also about poverty. Fuel poverty is a major issue for our society and it particularly hits the old and the poor. Can the Taoiseach provide a rational explanation as to why, in the teeth of energy prices rising faster than they have for many years, the fuel allowance was increased this year by only a miserable €5 per week? Does he accept that this miserable increase will not be sufficient to prevent hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of preventable deaths this winter? Will he agree to review that decision and, at the very least, consider a more realistic increase for those of our people threatened this winter not just by the cold but by fuel poverty?

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