Budget 2024: SVP urges ministers to consider targeted support for people in need

WHILE measures to alleviate energy poverty are likely to be included in the upcoming Budget, government ministers have been urged to consider more targeted support for people in need by St Vincent De Paul southwest regional co-ordinator Gerry Garvey.

A final series of meetings is being held this weekend on Budget 2024, involving Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and ministers to consider details of the Budget which will be announced in the Dáil on Tuesday.

It will offer support for people struggling with high electricity bills, Mr Varadkar said when speaking to reporters yesterday.

“What I can say is that people will get help with their electricity bills over the course of the winter,” he said.

Mr Varadkar said that “the details of that has to be worked out”.

He added: “Electricity prices have fallen, but they’re still substantially higher than they would have been two winters ago.

“We understand that as a Government we have the money to help people with those bills and we will.”

Gerry Garvey of SVP told The Echo that while everyone welcomed some help with electricity bills, it was important that this support should be targeted at the most vulnerable groups.

“We’re getting huge numbers of calls from people who are concerned and in genuine need,” Mr Garvey said.

Targeted support 

The SVP representative acknowledged that it was challenging for the Government to offer targeted support as organisations like SVP and others were urging.

“There’s no easy solutions but you could start by targeting groups like old age pensioners, lone parents, and other social welfare recipients — they’re the typical target groups we’re seeing.”

He said that SVP and groups like the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (Mabs) were dealing with power companies who were providing them with energy vouchers which the organisations were giving to people in difficulty.

“We’re already working with some of the big energy companies that have donated some funds to SVP and other organisations.

“What we’ve done is create energy vouchers so when people in need contact us, we can send them out €50 energy vouchers that they can immediately apply to their account and which are very easy to use and very helpful. We also have schemes with Bord Gáis and Electric Ireland.”

Mr Garvey also pointed out that people in rural areas without access to public transport had no choice but to use their cars to get them about.

“They’re being crippled at the moment with diesel and petrol prices and it’s obvious they know what they can do on that, they can reduce the excise.”

Cost-of-living measures 

Earlier this week, Mr Varadkar told parliamentary colleagues that Tuesday’s budget will have cost-of-living measures that people will feel the benefit of before Christmas.

The Budget 2024 package is set at €6.4bn with taxation measures amounting to €1.1bn. There will be a package of one-off measures, but Minister for Finance Michael McGrath has said that as inflation still remains high, there will be “a limited amount of space available” for temporary support, which will be targeted.

Several measures that could be included in Budget 2024 have been floated in recent months, including a reduction in the universal social charge (USC) and an increase in the threshold at which the higher rate of tax is introduced.