Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

168. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of fuel allowance recipients with children under 18 years of age in the household. [33636/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Fuel Allowance is a payment which helps households with heating costs. It is available to recipients of a large number of social protection schemes, including State Pensions (Contributory and non-Contributory), Invalidity Pension, One Parent Family Payment, and long term Jobseeker Allowance recipients.

The Fuel Allowance payment is typically added to the usual weekly social welfare payment as an additional payment component. This means that the fuel allowance is different to other social welfare payments in that it is operated across a variety of the Department’s payment systems, rather than one centralised system. Accordingly, it is not always possible to extract the detail requested by the Deputy in relation to fuel allowance across all of the schemes eligible for payment under the scheme. However my Department can confirm that of the 375,269 recipients in receipt of Fuel Allowance in December 2020, 57,276 of these were receiving Child Benefit payments at that time.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

169. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of households receiving welfare payments that enable them to qualify for the warmer homes scheme that have children by payment. [33640/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Better Energy Warmer Home Scheme is operated by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and aims to improve the energy efficiency and warmth of homes owned by people with low incomes. A person in receipt of Fuel Allowance, Working Family Payment, Domiciliary Care allowance, or the One Parent Family Payment may qualify for the payment if they own their own home. Further, a person in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance for 6 months or more where there is a child under 7 in the home, or a person in receipt of Carer's Allowance who lives with the person they provide care to, may qualify if they own their own home. 

My Department does not hold data on home ownership; accordingly, while the data provided in the table below details the number of persons availing of a number of the qualifying schemes, it is not possible to determine what proportion of these people could qualify for the Better Energy Warmer Home scheme. 

It is also not possible to provide the number of persons receiving Carer's Allowance who reside with the person they are providing care to, or the number on Jobseekers payment for longer than 6 months with a child under age 7.As stated above, the link between receipt of these payments and  home ownership is not known to the Department.

Recipients of Selected Schemes

*  Fuel Allowance numbers refer to December 2020; all other data refers to May 2021

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.