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

I would like to see Government information flowing in respect of two areas with the sort of frequency and sophistication that we saw around Covid announcements. I note there is a Government of Ireland document entitled Be Winter Ready. We discussed at length the question of fuel energy price hikes. Notwithstanding the debate around all of that, there is a real danger of people on low incomes, such as pensioners and so on, freezing during the winter and excess winter deaths. Many of those people do not know where they get help.

We can debate whether the help that is available is sufficient, but many people do not know where to get that help. I am dealing with a man who has cancer. His boiler has been broken for three or four months and he has been freezing since October. He does not know where to go. He needs help and information. The Government is telling people to be winter ready. We need to get information out to the people who may need to make choices about turning off heating or who do not have their heating on about where they can get help and how they can get out of that situation. I appeal for that kind of information to be made available.

Second, there was a shambles around the PUP over the Christmas period, and that continues. There is huge confusion about the entitlement to the PUP. I discovered from our taxi driver friends, who were one of the big victims of this, that people thought PRSI contributions were being awarded to them while they were in receipt of the PUP. As far as I understand it, that should have happened. However, when people went to apply for the PUP they were told they did not have sufficient PRSI contributions or there was significant confusion. People are having difficulty getting the help they need. We need Government information to explain how people can get answers.

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