Fuel Poverty
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
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Paul McAuliffe (FF), Dublin North-West

I appreciate that. The Minister is correct that the warmer homes scheme is hugely popular. That and the increase in the fuel allowance are exactly the kind of ring-fenced funding that carbon tax provides. The difficulty is that people who are heading into this winter have either no central heating system, no back boiler system or a broken gas boiler and they cannot get the warmer homes grant because they have no boiler to register the heat loss indicator. They used to be able to get the local council grant but that is gone. As a last resort, I was able to send them to the Department of Social Protection for an emergency payment, but the Department is now saying it will not fund it either. I am aware of people heading into a second winter with no heating system and no way of getting it who also cannot get the warmer homes grant. There is clearly a regulatory gap. It is not an issue of funding but there is a problem whereby people just do not have the €2,500 or €3,000 to get a boiler and they cannot get the warmer homes scheme or any sort of support so they will have no heating this year. That is clearly not Government policy.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17