Committee calls for 10% increase to all social welfare payments
Oireachtas Social Protection Committee chairman Denis Naughten said the committee’s 31 recommendations would be forwarded to the Department of Social Protection for consideration before deciding its own budget priorities. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins
The Oireachtas Social Protection Committee has recommended that all social welfare payments be increased by at least 10% in the coming budget, with the aim of lessening the impact of the cost of living crisis.
In its pre-budget submission the committee, chaired by outgoing independent TD Denis Naughten, said that all welfare payments should be benchmarked against a minimum essential standard of living.
Ireland is one of just two countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which does not use a formal system for benchmarking such State payments.
Mr Naughten said that a “key focus” of the committee in terms of Budget 2024 has been the “tackling of poverty and the rising cost of living, alongside general social welfare rates”.
To that end the committee took submissions from 23 interested parties including the National One Parent Family Alliance, St Vincent de Paul, and senior citizen organisations Age Action and ALONE.
A common theme across those submissions is that a system to benchmark welfare payments is an “imperative” in the new budget.
Mr Naughten said the committee’s 31 recommendations would be forwarded to the Department of Social Protection for consideration before deciding its own budget priorities.
He said that the committee is “dedicated” to ensuring that the various recommendations are implemented to “create positive change for the most vulnerable individuals in society”.
Priority recommendations made include a review of means testing for social welfare payments to be “completed and published speedily”, the extension of the Free Travel Scheme to anyone deemed unfit to drive a car for a year, and for carers allowance and carers benefit to be increased to €325 from next year.
The committee further recommended that 100% of mortgage and rent costs should be discounted in the means assessment for the one parent family payment, and that child benefit should be extended to a child’s 19 th year while they are still in second level education, given that the popularity of a transition year means children are increasingly leaving school at an older age.
Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys has already indicated this week that enhanced social welfare payments for those made redundant will be brought to Government in the near future.
Those measures would see people rendered unemployed via redundancy receiving up to €450 in weekly payments for six months, in order to prevent a ‘cliff edge’ fall-off in earnings once a job has been lost. The standard rate of jobseekers benefit is ordinarily €220 per week.
Separately, the department will hold its annual pre-budget forum on Wednesday, with attending groups keen to use the opportunity to further their own budgetary submissions.
At the same event, the National Women’s Council (NWC) is expected to push the “extraordinary opportunity” to tackle the “ongoing systemic inequalities” faced by Irish women by echoing the social protection committee’s call for benchmarking of welfare payment rates.
“The ongoing cost-of-living crisis has compounded the social protection cuts which occurred during austerity, and women have been hit hardest — particularly marginalised women such as lone parents, Traveller women, migrant women, and disabled women,” NWC economic equality co-ordinator Donal Swan said.
He said that all payments should increase by “at least €25” in the budget, a higher rate than that recommended by the social protection committee.
“Government must commit to benchmarking social protection rates and pensions to a level which provides an adequate standard of living for all,” Mr Swan said.
