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

I will give the Minister some examples, the first of which involves a couple in their 60s. The husband, who used to work, developed early-onset Alzheimer's disease. They were on a big top-up arrangement, which people on the housing assistance payment, HAP, should not have to pay, and as a result they fell into arrears, given the cost-of-living hikes. We eventually got an exceptional needs payment for them but it was not enough because at no point could they meet an individual to explain the complexities of their case. The Minister said unscheduled meetings with CWOs are available, but I am afraid that is not true. I tabled a question about the hotline that can be called, which she will come to later in this session. If you call that hotline, you will encounter very nice people at the other end of the phone but they are not community welfare officers. They are people who will send you out forms to be filled out. There have been a number of cases of desperate people who did not get their exceptional needs payments until after Christmas, so had very little money, and they would not have got them without the assistance of my office.

I can give another example of a man whose wife has cancer. He cannot turn down the heating but, because she is on illness benefit, he is not entitled to the fuel allowance or the additional needs payment. These are difficult, complex circumstances for vulnerable people and they need to be explained to a human being. That is not a criticism of the staff. It is a criticism that there has been a change in the availability of human beings to talk to in the community welfare service.

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