The Christmas budget of some branches of the Society of St Vincent de Paul will be totally taken up helping people to pay for fuel, the society's vice-president said yesterday.
Prof John Monaghan, speaking at the publication of the society's pre-budget submission, also said calls for help had increased by between 10 and 15 per cent on last year. Its members made more than 300,000 calls last year. "The society is busier than ever," he said.
For example, one of the society's branches, in Macroom Co Cork, had "just done its sums on fuel". It calculated that all the money it collected for Christmas this year would not even cover the cost of helping people pay for fuel this winter.
More than €2.5 million was spent on helping with fuel and ESB costs last year. "With the increases in electricity, oil and gas prices this year we are expecting a gigantic increase in that €2.5 million figure," Prof Monaghan added. "We are enormously concerned that escalating fuel costs are forcing families to choose between food and heat."
Among its pre-budget submission's calls is one for a doubling of the weekly fuel allowance, from €3.90 to €7.80 a week for coal and from €9 to €18 a week for non-coal.
The submission, Break the Cycle - Now, describes Ireland's poverty statistics as "shameful", saying people on welfare or low incomes simply do not have enough money to meet the basic requirements of day-to-day life.
The Government has "twice broken its commitment in relation to child benefit, firstly in 2003 and again in 2005". It calls for an increase in this benefit by €18.30 to €159.90 a month for the first and second child and by €17.70 to €195 a month for third and subsequent children.
Prof Monaghan said one of the new issues emerging in "a big way" was the situation of migrant workers and the hardship endured due to the habitual residence condition, according to which a person must be resident here for two years before being entitled to any benefit. This was severely affecting migrant workers and their families who either had yet to find employment or who had had to leave work due to ill health, he said.
"The SVP office in Kerry reports that migrants coming to them are extremely vulnerable. In Drogheda, eight to 10 new migrant families a week are being helped and SVP hostels in Dublin, Cork, Limerick Wexford and Longford are all providing short-term accommodation to migrant workers."
The title of the submission was chosen to emphasise the disparity between Ireland's record as one of the wealthiest and yet also, according to the UN, the third most unequal society in the developed world.
The submission also calls for:
