72. Deputy Mark Wall asked the Minister for Social Protection if he will consider granting a fuel allowance to those that have had an application refused or revoked due to an adult child or family member moving back home. [62019/25]

Sentiment score: 0.01

This is a case of déjà vu in that we mentioned this yesterday, but I want to ask the Minister of State once again if he will consider granting a fuel allowance to those who have had an application refused or revoked due to another child or family member moving back home.

Sentiment score: 0.15

I am nodding. The Minister mentioned household composition tests and people working, but the problem I have is where a person who returns to a house is not working and is getting a social welfare payment. These are low-income households and these are the people who must be targeted. I mentioned last night that I have come across three or four cases of this in the past two weeks alone. I asked last night whether we have targeted these people. Today, the Government will announce with triumph a new housing plan, the fourth in recent years. There is a housing emergency. There are parents taking back their loved ones – their sons or daughters – under their roofs again because they have either fallen out with a partner or cannot afford rent, yet the Government is taking €38 from the fuel allowance. Many of those affected are older people who need the €38 to heat their homes. What is happening is wrong, as I have said several times. Particularly where the person coming back under the roof is in receipt of a social welfare payment and is not working, we should be considering targeting. This is the kind of targeting the Government should be employing.

Sentiment score: -0.08

I take the Minister’s reply. I acknowledge the fact that the fuel allowance has been extended to working family payment recipients, because they are in low-income families who need all the help they can get in what are housing and cost-of-living crises. I hope that if I can give the Minister three or four examples of what has been happening over the past two weeks in Kildare South, he will examine the matter again. I am sure it is not just happening in Kildare South. Maybe we are just targeting Kildare South. The affected families are genuine families. In many cases, a loved one, a son or daughter, will have left home to make a life for himself or herself but, for whatever reason, has come back under the roof again. They are in a housing emergency. Who is going to turn away their son or daughter? By putting a roof over the head of their son or daughter again, they are losing the payment. It is causing a lot of strife and concern in families and it is hitting the lowest income families in my area. I hope the Minister, when I bring some examples to him, can look at this further.

Sentiment score: 0.06