National Economic and Social Council Dail Éireann — 2026-02-17 ============================================================ Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth In fairness this was brought up earlier as regards energy poverty. There is an acceptance by Government that there is a need for a payment relating to the cost of disability. It was provided for last year. A review process is ongoing. It is unfortunate that it is necessary for the Affordable Ireland Campaign coalition to come together and for that protest to happen on 28 February but we need action now. It is not much good for people who cannot afford to pay for heating at this point in time. They cannot afford to get a wheelchair charged and have to make decisions like that. We really need a short-term measure before we get the other one, and that is before we deal with the CRU and dealing with energy issues. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-17