Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 220: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of persons in receipt of fuel allowance for each of the past five years; and the number of old age pensioners and other pension or welfare categories in receipt of a fuel allowance in each of those years and in respect of each pension and welfare category the percentage of that category in receipt of fuel allowance in each of those years. [39794/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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A fuel allowance of €9 per week is payable to eligible households during a 29-week winter heating period from end-September to mid-April each year. An additional €3.90 per week is payable in the designated urban smokeless fuel zones.

As announced in the recent budget, the rate of fuel allowance will be increased by €5 with effect from January 2006. This increase will bring the basic fuel allowance up to €14 per week while the rate for recipients in designated smokeless areas will increase to €17.90.

The numbers qualifying for the fuel allowance scheme for the years 2000 to 2005 are set out in the following Table 1.

My Department does not have statistics on the number of recipients of the fuel allowance broken down by social welfare scheme for the last five years. However, details on the current fuel allowance recipients by social welfare category is given in Table 2.