Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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976. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the reason the 390 day penalty is enforced when applying for the fuel allowance for persons who leave an abusive relationship who have experienced psychological control and coercive financial abuse in cases in which they can clearly demonstrate they were linked to the payment of the abuser in the relationship (details supplied). [14347/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €28.00 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €784 each year) from October to April, to over 372,000 low income households, at an estimated cost of €300 million in 2021.  The purpose of this payment is to assist these households 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.

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.  Qualifying payments for Fuel Allowance are those payments that are considered long term payments and an applicant must also satisfy a means test. Fuel Allowance cannot be paid on a discretionary basis.

It is only in the case of Jobseekers Allowance (JA) and Basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance (BASI) that an applicant must satisfy the 15 month qualifying period to be able to receive Fuel Allowance in their own right.  Other qualifying schemes such as One Parent Family Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance Transition, Deserted Wife's Benefit or Allowance and Disability Allowance do not have any minimum qualifying period requirement for receipt of the fuel payment.

While short term JA and BASI are not qualifying payments for Fuel Allowance they do not prevent an otherwise qualified household from receiving the payment.

Any decision to include short term Jobseekers Allowance or BASI as qualifying payments for Fuel Allowance would have budgetary consequences and would have to be considered in the context of budget negotiations taking into consideration the resources available to my Department.  The short-term nature of the schemes would also result in considerable logistical and payment equality issues in the administration of the scheme.

My Department is acutely aware of the difficulties that a person who leaves an abusive relationship can face.  As part of the Government’s pandemic response, the Department introduced changes to the rent supplement scheme to make it more easily accessible to victims of domestic violence.  This seeks to ensure that victims of domestic violence are not prevented from leaving their home because of financial or accommodation difficulties.  Support is provided for up to six months to provide the victim with an opportunity to address their long term housing needs.

Assistance is also available under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) emergency need payments - exceptional needs payments (ENP) - to help meet essential, once-off expenditure including heating needs which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet from his/her weekly income.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.