Sinn Féin TD Ann Graves said that fuel poverty is at “crisis point” and Ireland’s elderly are “being forced to choose between heat or to eat.”
Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday, Graves said “I have seen at firsthand in my own constituency of Fingal East how our older generation are forced to decide between, heat or eat.”
“Only this week I visited a woman in Malahide who has worked all her life and is forced to walk around shopping centres to keep warm, simply because she can no longer afford to heat her home.”
“It is heartbreaking to see this independent woman reduce her diet to cuppa soups because she can no longer afford to eat properly and heat her home. This government congratulated themselves because of a budget surplus of over €9 billion. Well, this surplus has come at a terrible cost.
“People are literally freezing in their homes. This government must release the purse strings and give the disabled a once off fuel payment and give our elderly the financial assistance they need to heat their homes properly,” Graves said.
“It really is a life and death situation.”