Your mum needs to apply for the 'Housing Aid for Older Persons Scheme'. Your local CIC will have application forms on site.
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/housing/housing-grants-and-schemes/housing_aid_for_older_persons_scheme
The Central Bank are the administrators of this Scheme but it is the government that sets the guarantee, don't they then have a legal obligation to come up with the funds to compensate savers in the unfortunate event of a bank collapse?.
I have an upright hotpoint frost-free fridge freezer for nearly a year and it's brilliant not having to defrost it. No problems so far with it and I hope not for a long time.
I really am not bothered whether Dunnes Stores are analyzing my weekly shop, I would be far more concerned about my privacy been compromised from data and personal details stored in stolen laptops from State bodies.
I don't think we should be comparing ourselves to the drinking habits of other nations. For example, France has the highest rate of alcoholics with 5.7 alcoholics per one hundred adults. There is nothing healthy about those rates.
Zag - You don't shock no one but yourself. Alcohol affects every organ in the body if I were you I would be most concerned of the damage been done to my body. You'd really want to think about what you are doing.
I heat the water with oil but the rads are switched off over the summer. It's far cheaper than electricity even taken account of the present high cost of oil.