Madam, - I refer to the letters headed "Eircom rental", which appeared in the Personal Finance section of the Business This Week supplement of March 5th, and "Two sides of the Eircom story", published in Letters to the Editor of March 11th. They may have led readers to believe that the telephone allowance provided by the Department of Social and Family Affairs, had been discontinued.
This is not the case. The allowance remains in place as before.
The allowance is available generally to people living in the State aged 66 or over who are in receipt of a social welfare type payment or who satisfy a means test. It is also available to carers and people with disabilities under the age of 66 who are in receipt of certain welfare type payments.
Some 300,000 pensioners and other groups receive the allowance, which is payable at the fixed rate of €20.41 per month. When VAT is included this is worth €49.39 on the normal two-monthly bill. The scheme will cost over €92 million this year (an increase of nearly €9 million on 2003 costs).
Until recently the telephone allowance met the full Eircom line rental charge. These charges were increased by over 7 per cent from the beginning of February 2004. Following negotiations, however, a much reduced level of increase, just 47 cent a month including VAT, was applied to social welfare clients.
To further mitigate the increase, Eircom is promoting its "low user" scheme. This is available to any customer, including those receiving social welfare telephone allowance, and gives up to €5 per month worth of calls free to those who do not make many calls.
I hope this clarifies the position. - Yours, etc.,
EDDIE WALSH, Deputy Press Officer, Department of Social and Family Affairs, Dublin 1.