Recent energy price rises hit low-income households disproportionately with Government supports only offsetting part of the impact, a new report from the Economic and Social Research Institute has found.
The study said lower-income households spend a larger proportion of their income on energy, particularly on home heating oil, petrol and diesel.
It said increases in fuel and heating costs placed a heavier financial burden on the less well off.
In March and April the Government reduced excise on fuel, suspended the National Oil Reserve Agency levy, extended the fuel allowance and deferred an increase in the Carbon Tax.
The ESRI said that these measures reduced the immediate cost by half.
But it said it did not offset the “regressive nature of energy inflation”.
Dr Claire Keane, associate research professor at the ESRI, said: “While recent policy measures help to cushion the shock, their largely untargeted nature means that a significant share of the support goes to higher-income households.”
She added: “More targeted measures could better protect vulnerable groups at a lower cost.”
The report said that without the Government’s cost-of-living package, low-income households would have faced an energy prices rises which would have been the equivalent to 3% of their household income.
But high-income households would have faced an energy price increase of 1% of household income.
