Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In or around 400,000 people benefit from the fuel allowance. When I changed the means test criteria, that brought around another 30,000 people into it. It has brought more people into the fuel allowance net. The Government has sought to protect the most vulnerable from the rising costs of living through targeted increases to ancillary social welfare payments such as the fuel allowance, the living alone allowance and qualified child payments. There was an extensive budget package which we sometimes forget about. It was the biggest budget in 14 years and we had a €5 increase across the board. In addition to that, the living alone allowance went to €22 per week. Changes were made to the working family payment and those changes are being brought forward to April. Many things have been done.

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