Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Dublin South West Se\u00e1n Crowe has called on the Government to support a Sinn F\u00e9in motion that would extend the fuel allowance to those on PUP support payments, saying that, with the restrictions set to continue for weeks to come, one shouldn\u2019t be forced to choose between having a warm home or having something to eat.<\/p>\n
Teachta Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cCOVID has seen household finances and budgets stretched to the limit as jobs and business have suffered due to the necessary restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week, over 475,000 people in the State received the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. That\u2019s 475,000 people who have lost their job and lost their income from being let go from work.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany are struggling to afford basics like heating their homes. This is totally wrong and unacceptable. The Government must change this policy to support these workers who are now struggling through no fault of their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one should be forced to choose between having a warm home or having something to eat but that is happening in homes right across the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, people have to have been unemployed for at least 15 months before they can apply for financial support with their heating costs. This means that workers who lost their jobs over the course of the pandemic and who are still on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment are excluded from these vital financial supports.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinn F\u00e9in have put down a D\u00e1il motion that would change this so that PUP recipients would be eligible for the Fuel Allowance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sinn F\u00e9in motion would also put in place a double payment of the Fuel Allowance for two weeks in February. Under current public health guidelines, we\u2019re all being told to stay at home for much more of the day than usual. As a result, many workers and families are seeing their energy and heating bills sky rocket. People need support in covering these costs in these extraordinary times.<\/p>\n
\u201cLastly, the motion also calls on the Government to establish an initial discretionary COVID fund of \u20ac5 million to help households with utility debt and arrears, something that St. Vincent de Paul have flagged as a cause for alarm as we emerge from the pandemic. Other countries have set up similar funds to help families who have fallen behind on bills and we can do it here too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis motion is about supporting struggling families. The proposals are aimed at those most in need and are targeted in order to support households where jobs have been lost and workers who are out of work because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that the Government will see some sense, and do the right thing by these workers and their families. We need to do much more to support workers and families across the state during these unprecedented times.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Dublin South West Se\u00e1n Crowe has called on the Government to support a Sinn F\u00e9in motion that would extend the fuel allowance to those on PUP support payments, saying that, with the restrictions set to continue for weeks to come, one shouldn\u2019t be forced to choose between having a warm home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4462"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4466,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions\/4466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}