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prioritise - and I have been doing this in my work on the committee and in my emails and parliamentary questions - is the living alone allowance. It costs the same to heat a home whether someone is on their own or whether there are two people living … income limit for a single person, I think that would really benefit the pensioner living alone whose pension has just put them above the threshold which then makes them lose the fuel allowance. They then lose access to the free warmer homes scheme. That

allowance, which is impacting not only on pensioners but also on people with disabilities and people living alone - people who would have higher energy costs and more challenging household bills. The allowance is frozen, the electricity bills are not and older people, people with disabilities and people living

also those who have disabilities and those who are living alone. It is part of the programme for Government to review the household benefits package. What plans does the Minister have to increase the free electricity allowance in order that it better reflects the energy costs households

need fundamental reforms that support households with the rising cost of living. The Government needs to bring forward a second tier of child benefit payment to support those on lower incomes. That cannot be done alone because many working families are also struggling. They are struggling … times already. I refer in particular to older people who live alone. This is a massive issue for my office. The Government must look at increasing welfare payments for older people, starting with increasing the fuel allowance, extending the season and increasing the household benefits package. I look

powered home-heating systems, and I agree with that. We need to go further and faster in rolling out supports and incentives to allow people to wean themselves off fossil fuels. We need to make EV grants, heat pumps, insulation, solar panels, batteries and so on more accessible … income families and single adults living alone, exactly the people most in need of support at the moment. Will the Deputies who are advocating for cuts to the carbon tax go back to their constituencies and gleefully tell pensioners on fuel allowance the good news that they will

successive increases of €60 per week in the working family payment threshold and, as I said, we have expanded access to the fuel allowance for nearly 50,000 families who are in receipt of the payment. These increases are in addition to the expansion of the hot school … children. In the context of my Department, the total value in budget 2026 alone was €320 million. Many of these measures have not yet been reflected in the survey on income and living conditions, SILC, data on which much of the ESRI report is based. However, I note

regulate? How on earth could this be allowed to happen? The documentary showed how some children with additional needs, their families and schools are being comprehensively failed by this Government. It showed how they must spend their lives in a constant fight for services, equipment, resources … anyone other than the children and the families themselves. There are no inquiries or investigations, just children and families who are left feeling alone, marginalised and isolated, trying to pick up the pieces. One of the schools that featured last night was Stapolin Educate Together National School

where it has become acceptable and is becoming more acceptable the deeper we come into this. Right now, families in this country are living in misery, afraid to switch on their electricity. Dealing with this, I have seen first hand households impacted by defective concrete that are significantly … County Donegal alone, the cost of heating oil is 50% dearer than it was last year. Equally, the cost of electricity in one year in this country has gone up by nearly 76.9% compared with what it was last year. Energy companies are being allowed to profit from

energy credit for low-to-middle income households. These are households that are being squeezed the hardest by the cost-of-living crisis that we are all experiencing. They are hit with price increase after price increase right across the board, while energy companies continue to record these … carries the burden when those prices rise. Allowing households to absorb those higher bills while extraordinary profits go untouched is not inevitable; it is a political choice made by the Government. The energy crisis and the wider cost-of-living crisis are squeezing families from every direction

investment. Allowing a jury to consider careless driving where there has been an acquittal on a charge of dangerous driving is also reasonable. Modernising the national vehicle and driver file and removing unnecessary bureaucracy also makes sense, of course. I have to say, though, that legislation alone will … declined by 40% since 2009. How did we reach a situation where gardaí encountering someone driving a stolen car recklessly, potentially putting innocent lives at risk, have not been given the specialist training and resources needed to respond? We know that a pursuit will not always

measures that continue to protect people from energy poverty and reduce our dependence on expensive imported fossil fuels. These revenues support the fuel allowance, fully funded home energy upgrades, the wider retrofitting scheme, investment in our electricity grid and measures to help farmers transition to lower carbon practices … billion in carbon tax revenue has been allocated to the just transition and decarbonisation measures. Demand proves these programmes matter. Last year alone, 58,000 homes were retrofitted. Since 2019, more than 287,000 home energy upgrades have been delivered, including over 39,500 fully funded upgrades

litre fill of home heating oil now costs approximately €1,600, up more than 60 per cent in just the past year alone; — according to the Central Statistics Office, the cost of household energy in Ireland has risen by a whopping 70 per cent in the past five … introducing a €400 energy credit, targeted at households earning up to €70,000. For years, we have been told that the cost-of-living crisis, high energy bills and spiralling households costs are events beyond our control. First, it was the invasion of Ukraine

maintaining the financial sustainability of the network into the future; — since 2022, passengers have benefited from a 20 per cent cost of living fare reduction, extension of the 90-minute fare, a 50 per cent discount for Young Adults and Students, free travel for children under nine years … Transport Authority (NTA) manage rising operating costs, improve capacity and reliability on existing services, and continue the rollout of new services; — in 2025 alone, 363.5 million passenger journeys were made on the Transport For Ireland network – this level of demand places significant pressure on the funding required

important for me to say clearly that this Government recognises the value of those contributions. The people who have chosen to make their lives here have helped to shape the modern Ireland we know today and they will continue to play an important role in our future development … simultaneously. It must support economic growth and competitiveness by enabling Ireland to attract the skills and talent that our economy requires. It must allow us to meet our humanitarian and international obligations to those fleeing persecution, conflict and instability. It must maintain secure borders and robust immigration procedures

against in accessing healthcare, legal documents, passports with their own identity, and more. Second, for a person born with intersex characteristics, it would allow a parent or a qualified informant to put an X on a birth certificate, meaning parents would no longer be forced to immediately choose … intersex trait. For comparison, 2% of people globally have green eyes. There may be as many as 90,000 intersex people in Ireland alone. Intersex identities have been portrayed as a newfangled development. In fact, in all ancient civilisations, there was a recognition of many genders, including

have seen Garda stations close and Garda resources stretched. I raised the fear that rural crime causes, particularly for elderly people and those living alone, and I have called for greater support for community alerts and other measures to protect them. I have also repeatedly raised the tragic … necessary resource be given to the Garda serious crime review team and to the local Garda investigation unit based in Bantry. That case alone shows why gardaí need the proper powers, technology and resources to investigate serious crime but there must be safeguards as well. A person

week's budget but I predict it will be nowhere near enough to help struggling families meet the demands of a cost-of-living crisis that has now become a permacrisis for far too many across this country. We are, as I say repeatedly, a rich country that … heard from the energy Commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, that the view at European Commission level seems to be that states should go it alone. The Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, and the Government more generally, should not be using the incrementalism at European level in terms of ECOFIN

commuters. I counted no less than 14 interventions from Deputies who called for that increased level of service and availability in this debate alone. There is a lot of demand. It is understandable and merited but it does have to be paid for somehow. Regarding funding, an unprecedented … will represent the biggest year-on-year enhancement of services in many measures. As per the intervention of Deputy Dolan, these measures would allow for the continued growth in PSO journeys, which have continued to grow steadily, and demonstrate how the public is making positive steps in making

from experts who have come in, that speed remains one of the principal factors determining both collision risk and collision severity. This Bill allows local authorities and Transport Infrastructure Ireland to set 60 km/h limits on certain roads in built-up areas and provides additional flexibility regarding national … objective has to be not just the removal of outdated, bureaucratic processes or the simplification and opening up of databases but actually saving lives. That is what we have to be about here. In this regard, there is so much more to do. The issue of enforcement

four defence personnel had to withdraw immediately - they could not stay - but the EU mission continued and 23 other countries stayed. Ireland alone had to leave because of our legal requirement to have UN Security Council approval. Our participation had Government approval. We were contributing. I met three … December this year. Why? It is because the UN mandate was not renewed because one of the permanent members did not allow a renewed mandate. After almost five decades of service - 1978 was when our troops were first on the ground - we will no longer be able

Deputy Ryan O'Meara asked the Minister for Social Protection if he is considering an increase in the living alone allowance in the context of Budget 2027. [67244/26

Deputy Séamus McGrath asked the Minister for Social Protection to review the qualifying eligibility and the rate of the living alone allowance. [67326/26

Cormac Devlin asked the Minister for Social Protection whether his Department has reviewed the requirement that a person receive both the living alone increase and fuel allowance to qualify for telephone support allowance; whether the weekly income limit for fuel allowance for persons aged 66 or over will