Fuel poverty is two-pronged - Village Magazine

April 2015 39

ROUND 20% of all households

in Ireland are considered to be

in energy poverty, as they spend

more than 10% of their income on

energy. The latest EU Survey on Income

and Living Conditions (SILC) data

identify a continuing upward trend in

households, both above and below the

povert y line, struggling to aﬀord energ y.

This is also reﬂected in the work of the

Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP).

The overall demand for our assistance

rose by 100% between 2008 and 2012.

However, our expenditure for assisting

households with energy costs rose by

200%, from €3.8m in 2008 to a high of

€11.3m in 2012. This assistance is for

all fuel types and covers both the Repub-

lic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The issues are illustrated in the words

of one person we assisted: “I sit out in

the kitchen but during the cold spell…I

couldn’t light my ﬁre because it was get-

ting a back draft down the chimney, full

of smoke… [my son] has bronchitis and

[my daughter] has asthma so I’d to get

the heaters out and thank God only for

the St Vincent de Paul helped me out

to get the heaters, and during the very

cold spell…that’s all we had was those

heaters…Oh my God the doors we had…

there was a big gap. You could see out

on the street. I went around the house

doing my own little thing… put masking

tape around the draft on the window…

the snake thing for the door, hot water

bottles for the kids to heat upstairs and

the bedrooms”. The point is this is not

untypical.

Energy aﬀordability is not only about

being able to buy energy. It is also about

housing conditions, the price of fuel and

knowing ‘the little things’ that reduce

costs. These are the issues that SVP

brought to the Department of Commu-

nications, Energy and Natural Resource

consultation document ‘Towards a New

Aﬀordable Energy Strategy for Ireland’

Survey on Income and Living Condi-

tions’. This document pointed to the

importance of retroﬁtting homes in

addressing energy poverty.

Improving the energy eﬃciency of

the national housing stock, both own-

er-occupied and private-rented, makes

ﬁnancial, economic and social sense.

Investing in energy-eﬃciency measures

is good for household income, jobs, the

environment, and human health and

welfare.

As to the eﬃcacy of subsidies for

retroﬁtting, we can look to the large

Department of Social Protection

expenditure on the fuel-allowance

and household-beneﬁts package. The

€400m spent annually on these allow-

ances dwarfs that of the retroﬁt budgets

of the Sustainable Energy Authority of

Ireland (SEAI) yet retroﬁtting would

clearly help reduce the need for the

allowances. Retroﬁtting homes plays

an important part in addressing energy

poverty, but it should not fall to those

already in energy poverty to foot the

bill. If Government wants to fund a sig-

niﬁcant national retroﬁtting campaign

it behoves all stakeholder Departments

to contribute to the cost.

SVP’s recent brieﬁng paper ‘Policy

Links on Energy Poverty’ contends that

the debate must take account of the mul-

ti-layered beneﬁts of energy eﬃciency

measures. The positive health contribu-

tions are suggested by the quote above.

SVP volunteers speak of their fears for

children’s education when they visit

homes where students have to do their

homework in busy family rooms due

to the absence of heated quiet rooms.

Any resultant reduction in bills takes

financial pressure off households,

reduces dependence on credit and gives

more financial autonomy. Reducing

energy use beneﬁts the environment

and wider society.

Research, undertaken by the Vincen-

tian Partnership for Social Justice and

commissioned by the SVP, shows the

positive contribution of energy retro-

ﬁtting. However, it also points toward

continued income inadequacy for

households dependent on social wel-

fare. This research, entitled ‘Minimum

Household Energy Need’ found that,

for certain household types in diﬀer-

ent accommodation and using diﬀerent

fuel types, improving the BER rating

of a home from an E to a B halved the

household’s energy costs. Despite this

however, such households remained in

or close to energy poverty as they still

paid more than 10% of their income on

energy.

The report warns that: “even at the

highest efficiency levels examined,

social-welfare-dependent households

tended to remain in energy poverty

and all faced inadequate income. Con-

sequently policy must address both

overall income adequacy and dwelling

eciency”. •

Brendan Hennessy is Membership Liaison

Oﬃcer, Social Justice and Policy Team,

Society of St Vincent de Paul.

Low incomes and poor energy eﬃciency. By Brendan Hennessy

Fuel poverty is two-pronged

Investing

in energy-

eﬃciency

measures

is good for

household

income,

jobs, the

environment,

and human

health and

welfare

“

POLITICS Fuel Poverty