Sir, – In 2012, recipients of the winter fuel allowance will be entitled to a total €500. This is almost twice the amount (€261) to which recipients were entitled after Charlie McCreevy’s giveaway budget of 2001. (In 2012 recipients will get €20 per week for 26 weeks. In 2002 recipients got €9 per week for 29 weeks).
So how can it be said that the recent cut will somehow result in Dickensian squalor being visited on our elderly population? And how can anyone with a straight face suggest that a State which is effectively bankrupt should continue to pay a “winter” fuel allowance until the first week of May? – Yours, etc,