Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

145. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection when the waiver for fixed line charges for pensioners was abolished. [50008/21]

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

I believe the Deputy is referring to the Telephone Allowance element of the Household Benefits package.

The telephone allowance element of the Household Benefits Package (HHB) was discontinued in 2014. The decision to discontinue the telephone allowance was estimated to provide annual savings of €48 million at that time. These savings meant that my Department was able to retain the other valuable elements of the household benefits package such as the electricity and gas allowance and the television licence.

While the telephone allowance was an important measure for vulnerable persons, the nature of the market has been transformed in recent years with deregulation, mobile services and bundled services including television, broadband and telephone. It makes the former notion of an allowance covering handset rental, standing charges and a number of calls somewhat outdated, when similar assistance can be achieved by increasing the rate of core payments, which benefit people regardless of whether they have a landline or not, and which can be spent by the recipients either on their landline-related costs, or on an alternative good or service of their own choosing.

Separately, the new telephone support allowance (TSA), which was announced in Budget 2018, is a weekly payment of €2.50. The TSA is not the same as the Telephone Allowance that formed part of the HHB package and has different qualifying criteria to the HHB Package. The primary objective of the TSA is to allow the most vulnerable people at risk of isolation, including the elderly and those with disabilities, access to personal alarms or phones for security.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.