Written answers

Thursday, 19 September 2024

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Social Welfare Rates

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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222. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost to the Exchequer annually of introducing a new half-rate fuel allowance for those with an income of €100 above the existing thresholds. [37188/24]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €33 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €924 each year) from late September to April, at an estimated cost of €382 million in 2024. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. Only one allowance is paid per household.

The criteria for Fuel Allowance are framed in order to direct the limited resources available to my Department in as targeted a manner as possible. To qualify for the Fuel Allowance payment, a person must satisfy all the qualifying criteria including the household composition criteria and a means test.

This ensures that the Fuel Allowance payment goes to those who are more vulnerable to fuel poverty, including those reliant on social protection payments for longer periods and who are unlikely to have additional resources of their own.

Due to the Department not holding household means or household composition data for all households, it is very difficult to cost this measure. Taking this into consideration and using data relating to 2023 Fuel Allowance applications, it is tentatively estimated that an additional 5,000 households would qualify for a half rate Fuel Allowance payment of €462 a year. The estimated yearly cost of this measure is €2.31 million.

Any decision to introduce the measure outlined by the Deputy would have budgetary implications and would have to be considered from an overall policy and budgetary context.

In Budget 2023, there was a significant increase in the allowable means for Fuel Allowance purposes allowing many more households to qualify for the payment.

For those aged 70 years and over, the means threshold is €500 for a single person and €1,000 for a couple. In addition, for people aged 70 or over, the amount of capital that is disregarded was increased from €20,000 to €50,000. Savings over €50,000 are assessed on a proportionate basis only.

For those aged under 70, the means threshold was increased by €80 to €200 above the appropriate rate of State Pension (Contributory). For a couple aged under 70, this equates to a maximum weekly means threshold of €725.90 and for a single person aged under 70 €477.30.

In January 2024, the allowable means for those aged over 70 was increased to €512 for a single person and €1,024 for a couple. This was to ensure that no one lost their entitlement to the Fuel Allowance payment due to the increase in weekly rates of Social Welfare payments.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

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