The Department of Social Protection, with its €30 billion budget next year, will again be the biggest spender. So what will be the most eye-catching spends?
The one that affects the most people will be the €10-a-week increase in all core payments from January.
For example, the State pension will go up to €309.30 a week; the disability benefit to €295 and jobseeker’s benefit to €264 a week.
What Government policies did Minister Dara Calleary prioritise in his budget?
The “North star” for the Government, according to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, is to address child poverty. The other big area the Government has committed to prioritising is disability.
RM Block
On child poverty, there has been a lot of talk about a second-tier child benefit to go to the poorest children. Did that happen?
It did not. Calleary says his officials are working on it, and hope to have it ready for Budget 2028. Instead, the child support payment, which goes to children of people dependent on social welfare, was increased by €6 a week to €64 for under 12s, and by the same amount to €84 a week for the over 12s. As we all know, teenagers cost a lot more in clothing, food and social activities.
It was noted recently by the ESRI, however, that families with very young children were more at risk of poverty.
Did Calleary do anything more for children in poverty?
He increased how much people on certain welfare payments can earn before their payments are reduced. So, the income disregard for the one-parent family and jobseekers’ transitional payments have gone up by €10 a week, and by €30 for the working family payment.
An interesting initiative will be the extension of the school meals scheme to holiday periods – the “holiday hunger” scheme will benefit 40,000 children.
Will these really help the thousands of children in poverty?
Barnardos, which works with the most vulnerable children and their families, doesn’t think they’ll do much.
“If substantially reducing child poverty and deprivation is to be the Government’s North Star, there is a considerable way to go,” the charity said.
What about disabled people? A cost of disability payment has been sought for many years. Has that happened?
Yes, the principle has been established in this budget, with the first payment happening early next year.
How much will it be?
€500 in a lump sum will be paid to all adult long-term recipients of disability benefits, including the disability allowance, full incapacity pension and the blind pension.
That’s less than €10 a week. It’s not a lot, especially when disabled people’s organisations were seeking about €55 a week to meet additional costs, including heating, mobility aids and special diets.
What has been the reaction?
Mixed. While the fact that a payment has finally been introduced has been welcomed, groups like the Disability Federation of Ireland (DFI) are “deeply disappointed” that the rate is so low and paid in one lump sum.
“The costs of disability do not happen once a year. They are part of disabled people’s everyday lives. After more than 20 years of campaigning, the principle has been won. But less than €10 a week is not prioritising disabled people,” said the DFI.
Are there other supports for disabled people?
Calleary is very focused on supporting disabled people who want to work to be able to. Ireland has a high unemployment rate among disabled people. So, he is reducing the minimum hours a disabled person has to work for their employer to qualify for the wage subsidy scheme (where the department pays some of the wages) from 15 hours to eight per week from April 2027.
The scheme will now be open to people on partial capacity benefit and illness benefit too.
What about carers?
There will be a €10 increase in the maximum rate of the carer’s allowance and carer’s benefit to €281 and €280 respectively from January 2027.
And the carer’s allowance income disregards will go up from July 2027 by €150 to €1,150 for a single person and by €300 to €2,300 for a couple. This means a couple earning over €126,000 will now be able to get a full payment without any impact on the means test.
What else was announced and who will the measures help?
The fuel allowance, which goes to 470,000 households for 28 weeks a year between late September and March, is being increased by €5 a week to €43. That will help pensioners, disabled people, carers, the unemployed, one-parent families and low-income working families.
Calleary said he was very conscious of the plight of pensioners whose partner or spouse has died, leaving them with much reduced incomes. This particularly affects older women. The living alone allowance, important to this cohort, will go up by €3 to €25 a week. This has not increased in five years.
He is also improving access to the fuel allowance for this group. The means test for single pensioners will see the income threshold increase.
What about the Christmas bonus? Will that happen this year?
Yes, the bonus – a double welfare payment – will be paid to almost 1.4 million long-term social welfare recipients in early December.
