Older people left out in the cold, says Waterford councillor
Gas boilers are not covered by the grant.
Elderly people in Waterford are struggling to stay warm in their homes amid rising fuel costs.
Councillor Joeanne Bailey (Sinn Féin) spoke about elderly residents caught in a difficult situation at the Metro meeting.
She said: "Older people are being pushed from pillar to post when it comes to the grants schemes for older persons. One of the areas that the grant doesn’t cover is gas boilers. One elderly family I have been in contact with only has an open fire with a back boiler to heat the radiators they have to wait hours for the house to heat up, the cost of fuel is after increasing, leaving them under pressure with bills weekly.
"One of the residents is sick and has to attend the fire all day to keep the heat into their home. They want to find out if they could upgrade their system."
According to Cllr Bailey, such an upgrade is not covered by the Older People Grant. She said: "Air to water scheme out of reach financially and their house wouldn’t have a high BER rating to install it.
"Cases like this are not just one off it’s happening to families across our city, government policy needs to change and more work needs to be done to help our older residents.
"Is there anything can be done to help this family improve their heating system in the house?"
Senior Executive Donal Ó'Murchadha said: "Unfortunately gas boilers are not available under the energy grant scheme at the moment. I would say however that we can work with the tenant to look at putting in a new heating system in there, we just can't pay for the boiler supplement."
He went on: "Also SEAI (Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland) have put out a new loan scheme recently and I would make everyone aware of that for energy upgrade works where they're not available under the grant scheme."
