Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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78. To ask the Minister for Social Protection his views on the hard means test of €100 over social protection payment to receive fuel allowance (details supplied). [36030/16]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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93. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will consider changing the means test for the fuel allowance (details supplied). [36018/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 78 and 93 together.

The fuel allowance is a payment of €22.50 per week for 26 weeks from October to April, to 376,000 low income households to assist them with their energy costs. The allowance represents a contribution towards the energy costs of a household. It is not intended to meet those costs in full. Only one allowance is paid per household.

My Department also pays an electricity or gas allowance as part of the household benefits package to approximately 421,000 customers, at an estimated cost of €228 million in 2016. Applicants for household benefits aged 70 or over do not have to satisfy a means test.

The criteria for Fuel Allowance are framed in order to direct the limited resources available to my Department in as targeted a manner as possible. People who are in receipt of a qualifying contributory payment must also satisfy a means test. All non-contributory recipients are accepted as satisfying the means-test.

A fuel applicant and members of his/her household may have a combined assessable income of up to €100.00 a week above the appropriate rate of State Pension Contributory and qualify for a payment. This ensures that the fuel allowance payment goes to those who are more vulnerable to fuel poverty including those reliant on social protection payments for longer periods and who are unlikely to have additional resources of their own. The €100 a week means limit is significantly higher that the weekly fuel allowance rate of €22.50 and also the combined weekly total of household benefits and fuel allowance added together (€33.65). It might be remembered that more than half of those over 66 are solely dependent upon the State pension, and so a person who has additional pension income above €100 is not among the more disadvantaged people that Fuel Allowance is targeted at.

The Guidelines for the Fuel Allowance Scheme are kept under review. However, any decision to introduce a system of tapered fuel rates for cases that have means greater than the allowed €100 would have cost implications, and would have to be considered in the context of overall budgetary negotiations. Alternatively, if it was restructured on a cost-neutral basis, this would mean that pensioners on lower incomes would have their Fuel Allowance payments reduced, in order to fund payments to people with higher weekly incomes.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.