Written answers

Tuesday, 24 May 2022

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Social Welfare Payments

Photo of Claire KerraneClaire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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485. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a qualifying social welfare payment supersedes a non-qualifying social welfare payment for households that already receive the fuel allowance, for example households in which a pensioner qualifies for and receives fuel allowance and a member of the same household later becomes in receipt of jobseeker’s benefit; the process for determining which payments take precedence in determining qualification for the scheme over others; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26438/22]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather 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 each year) from October to April, which is supporting up to an estimated 400,000 households in 2022, 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.

Fuel Allowance is a household payment and the status and income of all members of the household will be taken into consideration when deciding an application for Fuel Allowance.

To qualify for the Fuel Allowance an applicant must be in receipt of a qualifying payment, satisfy a means test and satisfy the household composition test.

Qualifying payments for Fuel Allowance are those payments that are considered long term payments. People on long term payments are unlikely to have additional resources of their own and are more vulnerable to poverty, including energy poverty. It is for this reason that the Department allocates additional payments, supports and resources to help this cohort of claimants.

To satisfy the household composition criteria an applicant may live alone or only with:

- a qualified spouse/civil partner/cohabitant or qualified child(ren); (if the qualified spouse is in receipt of half rate carers, in addition to the IQA payment, they may qualify for fuel allowance, subject to a means test) or

- a person in receipt of a qualifying payment who would be entitled to the allowance in their own right or

- a person who is in receipt of carer’s allowance or carer’s benefit in respect of providing full-time care and attention to the fuel allowance applicant or their qualified spouse/civil partner /cohabitant or qualified child(ren) or

- a person receiving pandemic unemployment payment (PUP), a person receiving short-term jobseeker's allowance (JA) or basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) - i.e., less than 391 days for JA and less than 15 months/456 days for SWA).

Fuel allowance is not payable if an applicant lives with any person, including a family member who is not covered by the criteria outlined.

Any decision to extend the eligibility criteria for Fuel Allowance to include households in receipt of short-term benefit schemes would have to be considered in the context of overall budgetary negotiations.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

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