Fuel poverty: ‘I do watch how many radiators I put on’

Facing into the autumn, 77-year-old Galway-based pensioner Alice Waring now thinks about how many radiators she can afford to put on, given rocketing fuel costs. She is not alone, she says.

Alice, who lives in a flat in Renmore, welcomed the rise of the fuel allowance by €5 a week as well as the same top-up in the pension, saying she "didn't expect the two fivers".

The Dublin native found herself with a non-contributory State pension because the years she spent as a carer for loved ones left her without enough social insurance stamps to be able to qualify for the contributory pension.

She appealed the Department of Social Protection’s refusal to grant her the contributory pension, but lost. She had, she said, no choice but to “get on with” living with the reduced benefit.

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“I do watch how many radiators I put on. I have one on now. If I feel the weather is going to be any bit warm I turn it off. I turn the hall radiator on to circulate in to the bedroom, she told The Irish Times.

‘Loads of clothes’

“People say, ‘Put your bedroom room radiator on for an hour, you will feel better.’ But I have my electric blanket there, and I put loads of clothes on. If fuel is going to go up and we are not allowed to use coal or burn wood then that is what we are going to have to do.

“It is a worry. I am half-thinking of putting the bed into the sitting room for the winter. Sure why not?” said the pensioner. The budget day increase will “certainly help, but it could be a bit more”.

She lives cautiously, she says, fearful of dipping into savings that might be needed in coming years: “It is great to have something like the Fair Deal but you have to add to it. We [she and her friends] do talk about things like that.

“With the pension you are stretched a bit. Everything is going up and up,” says Waring, who lives with osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, but still manages to stay active and involved in charity fundraising.

‘We are living longer’

Grateful for the help offered by the Cope senior support services in Galway, and for some aid in discovering how to turn down a complicated radiator, Alice says her generation sometimes feel like a cohort that “the Government want out of the way”.

“With all the medicines, we are living longer. I feel good at 77. Hopefully that will continue. If you even get to 80, that is a big achievement as well.”

Welcoming the pension increase, Age Action said, however, that it replaces just half of the €10.14 purchasing power lost because the pension was not increased for the last two years running.

“Older people have been left behind for three years while the cost of living has gone up,” said the charity for the elderly. “People need income adequacy and security in older age, but currently the State pension provides neither for those who depend on it.”