Ireland has more winter deaths than Norway, forum told

IRELAND HAS higher mortality rates during the winter than Norway even though it has much lower temperatures, a conference was told yesterday.

Dr Elizabeth Cullen, a community health doctor, claimed poor heating and housing accounted for the increased mortality during the winter in Ireland especially from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

The conference on fuel poverty in Dublin was told a cut in the winter fuel allowance by the Government from 32 weeks to 26 weeks has the potential to exacerbate the problem among the elderly.

The number of households receiving the allowance has increased from 264,000 (15.3 per cent) in 2005 to 400,000 (23.7 per cent ) last year.

Studies have found there are an average of 650 excess deaths during the winter months in the Republic in comparison with the summer months.

In the winter period there are an average of 1,600 extra admissions to hospital each year of those aged 65 or older, accounting for an extra 153,028 bed days at a cost of €61 million.

Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte told the conference, organised by the charity Energy Action, that eradicating fuel poverty was “unobtainable in the short term, our economic challenges are simply too great”.

However, he said the Government was committed through the affordable energy strategy to making as much progress as possible and already 80,000 homes had been more insulated.

He said there were 48 different actions to be rolled out to achieve the goal of ensuring that everybody lives in a well-ventilated home.

He stressed that the actions were not aspirations, but actual timetabled goals and targets were being set “though the economic situation could hardly be more difficult”.

He said fuel support schemes are not the most efficient ways of keeping people in adequate domestic heating.

Instead the poor thermal efficiencies in Irish homes are a much greater threat to older people than any cuts in the winter fuel allowance which had not come into force yet in any case.

“The last year has not been as easy one for any of us. We’ve all felt the pinch – from Government departments to community-based organisations and charities – and most especially those who we serve, the people struggling to pay their bills,” he said.

Dr Anne O’Farrell of the HSE health intelligence unit said people could die as a result of the reduction in the fuel allowance.

She maintained there was a correlation between fuel poverty and deaths during the winter.

“We do know that the reduction in fuel allowance will put more people into fuel poverty. If we reduce it [the winter fuel allowance], we are reducing the amount of money spent on fuel in people’s homes,” she said.

Age Action Ireland head of advocacy and communications Eamon Timmins said the failure to deal with fuel poverty was a “stain on the record of successive administrations who have failed to address the issue of fuel poverty in any serious or strategic fashion”.