The Government has ruled out setting up a voucher scheme to compensate people on low incomes for the rise in fuel costs prompted by the introduction of the carbon tax earlier this year.
Minister for Social Protection Eamon Ó Cuív also signalled the Government was not able to re-instate the Christmas bonus for welfare recipients due to the dire economic situation. But he provided some comfort to pensioners, saying he has no plans to "means-test" the State pension.
Opposition parties and groups representing old people criticised the decision not to compensate pensioners on low incomes for the carbon tax, saying this would cause severe hardship for vulnerable people and lead to more cold related deaths this winter.
"This is literally a life or death issue," Eamon Timmons of Age Concern told the Oireachtas committee on Social Protection.
"It should be a matter of national shame that we have up to 2,000 excess winter deaths each year in Ireland- older people who die from cold related illnesses because they cannot afford to heat their homes," he said.
When the carbon tax was announced last December Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said a "vouched fuel allowance scheme would developed to offset the increases for low income families dependent on such fuel".
In July, Mr Ó Cuív said he had set up a working group to devise a scheme to enable compensation measures to be in place "when the heating season starts again at the end of September 2010".
At the Oireachtas committee today, Mr Ó Cuív said the working group had not yet finished its work but the department had decided not to introduce a voucher compensation system. He said such schemes introduced stigma and caused an administrative burden because of their complexity.
He could not provide the committee with a date for the start of the promised compensation scheme.