Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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31. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if consideration has been given to the establishment of a Covid-19 discretionary fund to assist households with heating and electricity costs, especially those who find themselves struggling with debt; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48616/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The establishment of an additional Covid-19 discretionary fund to assist households with heating and electricity costs would require approval by Government and consideration from a budgetary and operational perspective.

The overall strategy to combat Fuel Poverty / Energy Poverty is under the remit of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications and questions in relation to the strategy should be directed to that Department.

My Department currently provides a range of schemes to assist low income households with energy costs.

The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €28 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €784 each year) from October to April (estimated to cost €300 million in 2021 for payments to an average of some 370,000 low income households).

An Electricity or Gas allowance is available under the Household Benefits scheme (at an estimated cost in 2021 of €195 million).

Under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) scheme, my Department operates schemes to help people with the cost of heating their homes. A Heating Supplement may be paid to assist people in certain circumstances that have exceptional heating costs due to ill health, infirmity or a medical condition and are unable to meet those costs out of household income. 1,100 people benefited from this supplement in 2020. So far this year, over 1,000 people have received this heating supplement.

My Department may make a single exceptional need payment (ENP) to help meet essential, once-off expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income.

4,262 ENP’s were made at a total cost of €670,000 to assist with the payment of household bills and heating costs in 2020. In 2019, over 5,000 ENPs were made in this category at a cost of €913,000. 1,500 payments have been made this year (to the end of September 2021) at a cost of almost €500,000.

Anyone who wishes to make an application for a payment under the SWA schemes should contact the Community Welfare Service at their local Intreo Centre. There is a national Income Support Helpline in place (0818800024) which will direct callers to the appropriate office.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.