Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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101. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the way it is proposed to promote the new income limit for the fuel allowance scheme to ensure that those who are eligible take it up and have the opportunity to also get a home heating upgrade free of charge. [5362/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €33.00 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €924 over a full fuel season) from October to April, to 375,000 low-income households, at an estimated cost of €366 million in 2022. 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.

My colleague, Minister Ryan, the Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications has the role of reducing energy poverty by implementing measures to improve the energy efficiencies of Irish homes under a number of schemes and I'm certain the Minister, his Department and relevant agencies under its aegis will be able to provide a range of information resources on these initiatives.

In Budget 2022 the Government increased the weekly means threshold for the fuel allowance scheme by €20 to €120 above the appropriate rate of contributory State pension representing a 20% increase in the threshold which enables more people to qualify for this support. This measure, along with other Budget measures, was widely promoted at Budget time by many media outlets, as well as on Gov.ie and Citizensinformation.ie. Detailed guidelines on the qualifying criteria for fuel allowance are, of course, available online on the Gov.ie website. My Department also issued press releases at Budget time which included details of the increased means threshold for fuel allowance.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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102. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of paternity benefit applications received since introduction; the number approved; and the number rejected by county in tabular form. [59977/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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A total of 140,906 applications have been received for Paternity Benefit since its introduction as of the end of December 2021, of which 133,868 have been approved and 3,645 have been rejected. The remaining 3,393 cases refer to withdrawn applications.

The number of paternity benefit applications, along with the number of applications approved and rejected at county level is presented in the following table noting that county figures for applications and rejections are estimated.