The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €33.00 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €924 each year) from October to April, which is supporting up to an estimated 400,000 households in 2022, at an estimated cost of €366 million in 2022. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. The allowance represents a contribution towards the energy costs of a household. It is not intended to meet those costs in full. Only one allowance is paid per household.
The Fuel Allowance payment is targeted towards those who are more vulnerable to energy poverty, including those reliant on social protection payments for longer periods and who are unlikely to have additional resources of their own.
If a participant on a Community Employment (CE) scheme was in receipt of Fuel Allowance prior to going on the scheme, they can continue to receive the Fuel Allowance payment while participating on the scheme once they continue to satisfy the qualifying conditions.
If the CE participant was not in receipt of the Fuel Allowance payment prior to going on the CE scheme they may still apply for and qualify for Fuel Allowance in the following circumstances.
- If the CE scheme participant was in receipt of a long-term qualifying payment prior to going on the CE scheme this will allow them to satisfy the qualifying payment element. However, all other qualifying conditions of Fuel Allowance must also be satisfied.
- Where the CE scheme participant has an established underlying entitlement to Fuel Allowance but is not in receipt of the allowance because another member of the household was receiving the payment, it is open to the CE scheme participant to apply for fuel allowance if these circumstances change, e.g., where the fuel allowance recipient leaves the address.
A CE Scheme helps people to get back to work by offering part-time and temporary placements in jobs based within local communities. Participants can take up other part-time work during their CE placement. A participant's jobseekers payment ceases and payment is made by way of a wage. It is for this reason participants on a CE scheme cannot accrue entitlement to Fuel Allowance.
In Budget 2022 I announced that from September 2022 the period a person
must be in receipt of Jobseeker's allowance or Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) to access the Fuel Allowance scheme is reduced to 12 months. This will, of course, also benefit people on CE schemes who previously have been in receipt of the above payments for greater than 312 days but did not meet the 390-day requirement.
Any decision to extend the eligibility criteria for Fuel Allowance for other people participating on a CE scheme would have to be considered in the context of overall budgetary negotiations.
Under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme, Exceptional Needs Payments may be made to help meet an essential, once-off cost which customers are unable to meet out of their own resources, and this may include exceptional heating costs. Decisions on such payments are made on a case-by-case basis.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
