This year, Ecofuel partnered with The Society of St. Vincent de Paul Ireland (SVP) and Galway Lions to distribute a container load of EcoBriquettes to households suffering from fuel poverty. The project included a gift of €10,598.46 from Ecofuel.
Gerard Hosty (Galway Lions), Seamus MacManus (SVP), Marie O'Donovan (SVP), Geraldine Mannion (Galway Lions), Cllr. Níall McNelis, Janis Vitols (ECOFUEL)
Fuel poverty in a way is a hidden problem in Ireland, somewhere down the pecking order below rent and food.
There's plenty of data on fuel poverty (which I’ll get to) and the numbers are scary.
But the most insightful conversation happened when we delivered the container load of EcoBriquettes to a St. Vincent de Paul depot in Briarhill. It was when we spoke with the SVP and Galway Lions volunteers that the fuel poverty story began to unfold.
Marie O’Donovan told me…
“It's the worst it's ever been in my 35 years of charity work. People are really struggling.”
The challenge with fuel poverty is identifying and accessing those in need. People might not be used to receiving handouts, those who've worked and been self-sufficient all their lives may find themselves in their older years scraping by on their pension.
They may have fallen on hard times. Something disastrous comes along and upends their financial situation.
It is not just the elderly who are suffering from fuel poverty.
The teams at St. Vincent de Paul and Galway Lions often see individuals and families in their fifties or sixties approaching retirement who have little in savings to cover unexpected costs.
Much of the middle class in Ireland is feeling the squeeze of inflation in their shopping basket and the housing crisis that’s driven rents through the roof.
The scary thing is that this can happen to anyone. One minute, everything appears to be OK. You’re making all your rent and car payments, you might even drive a new car that you replace every 3 years. But if you live paycheck to paycheck and don’t own anything, your whole life is rented and that’s a precarious situation.
It’s always something unexpected that triggers a crisis - you get sick and cannot work, or you lose your job and have no savings.
After rent and food, it’s impossible to make your household budget stretch any further and your fuel supply is the first thing to go.
But how much of a problem is fuel poverty?
Now might be a good time to introduce some of those statistics, collected from government, NGOs and academia.
- A 2022 ESRI report estimated that 29% of households in Ireland were experiencing energy poverty. The highest recorded rate, surpassing a previous high from 1995.
- SVP reported that 377,000 people were unable to keep their homes adequately warm.
- Friends of The Earth published a joint statement by social and environmental organisations in June 2023 saying almost one in three Irish households were classified as living in energy poverty in 2022.
How are we addressing fuel poverty
The work of our charity partners is crucial to find those in need.
For those receiving social welfare of any kind it’s simpler because they’re in the system. But there’s a cohort of individuals who have fallen on hard times, that may never have received any social welfare of any kind. They’re not used to receiving handouts. It’s not that they fell through the social safety net but missed it altogether.
They're simply not on the radar and we rely on the grassroots network of St. Vincent DePaul to reach those in need. It’s why we've made this initiative a cornerstone of our social projects.
Councillor Níall McNelis, dropped by for the delivery and to learn more about the initiative. He commented…
“I’m delighted to be here as Deputy Mayor for the city to say ‘well done’ to Ecofuel and the Lions Club and St. Vincent de Paul on this brilliant initiative. We're living in a moment where the cost of living crisis is really hitting home. We're going into a winter of uncertainty and this is just an absolutely brilliant project, pulled together for its fourth year. Well done to all involved”.
Marie O’Donovan added…
“It's a great idea for the two charities to come together like this because it’s helped us identify more people who need our help. We've definitely got to more people than we would normally. We’ve also found a lot of sick people, like those on chemotherapy, who need extra help staying warm, even during summer, which was very mild this year”.
Why do we do this?
It's one thing to have a good business. But it's another to have a business that does good. Every company exists in an ecosystem that extends beyond the business owner, the team and the customers, to include the towns around us.
And if there's an opportunity to somehow impact our community, we want to do everything we can to use our business as a way to improve social issues.
We spend a huge amount of time making EcoBriquettes the best fuel on the market. So they’re perfectly suited to target fuel poverty and the team passed along the wonderful feedback on their transformative impact…
EcoBriquettes are packaged in a way that is sustainable and easy to deliver. They're clean to handle, to store, and to use. They produce a huge heat output with no ash so there's less cleaning. And they're easy to break into smaller pieces, which is great for the elderly and helps the fuel last longer.
