Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 April 2018
1485. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the statutory basis for the fuel allowance scheme, the household benefits package and the free travel scheme. [16771/18]
View answerThe fuel allowance scheme, the household benefits scheme and the free travel scheme are non-statutory schemes which are operated by my Department. The schemes were introduced and extended by Ministerial Announcement.
Decisions in relation to applications for non-statutory schemes are made by Officers of my Department based on published guidelines setting out the conditions of entitlement in detail.
There are currently no plans to place the non-statutory schemes on a statutory basis. The major advantage of schemes being on a non-statutory basis is that they can be modified without needing a legislative change in response to customer needs, subject to the availability of resources. A recent example of this was the double week payment of fuel allowance during the cold weather event at the start of March.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
