Fuel Poverty
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-26
============================================================

Conor D. McGuinness (SF), Waterford

On the package of measures announced this week, the general consensus among the public, and certainly on this side of the House, was that it was much too late and far too little. It does not go anywhere near the kind of intervention needed in our society at present, in light of the current crisis and illegal war in the Middle East and the ensuing increase in fuel and energy costs but also in light of the broader context of increasing energy poverty and an increasing cost-of-living crisis. It does precious little for households across the State but many of these crises are being felt particularly in rural communities.
The dependence on diesel and petrol for transport is more pronounced in many of these communities, and there is a particular dependence on home heating oil in rural communities. The fact home heating oil was not included in that package of measures in any meaningful sense has left people agog and deeply disappointed as well as angry.
I will put an additional question to the Minister. Will the fairly mean extension of the fuel allowance be paid out as a lump sum or will that be paid out on a weekly basis? People really want to know if that will be cause for intervention in a meaningful way in their lives.

---

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/2026-03-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-26