'Eat or heat': Irish families cut back on food and other essentials as prices surge 4.6%

Sean Moynihan, the CEO of older persons’ charity Alone, cited respondents to their recent cost-of-living survey including one who said that 'eat or heat has become reality'. Stock picture

Struggling families are having to resort to either buying less or more unhealthy foods as new CSO figures show grocery prices are rising at more than double the general rate of inflation.

The Central Statistics Office has said that food and drink prices rose 4.6% in the last year, with significant surges in staples such as meat, milk, and butter, compared to the general rise in the cost of living of 1.8%.

A kilo of sirloin steak that cost €17.26 on average last year now costs €22.12. The same amount of roast beef has increased from €12.64 to €15.20. The price of lamb is also up significantly as is fish, the CSO said.

The average price of a pound of butter stands at €4.83, up €1.10 on June last year, while two litres of milk is up 27c to €2.47. A kilo of Irish cheddar cheese is up 95c to €11.34.

The price surges are adding thousands of euro to consumers’ annual spend.

Budget 2026

It comes as the focus is set to turn to what measures the Government will take to support families in this autumn’s budget.

While one-off universal measures have been ruled out, advocates have said the Government must act to support struggling households through higher welfare rates and targeted supports.

Stephen Moffatt, national policy manager at children’s charity Barnardos, said families have been shopping more carefully to look for savings wherever they can as they plan out meals more to stretch the food budget.

“However, when prices continue to rise significantly and incomes don’t there’s only so much that parents can do,” he said.

“In a way, they’ve made as many reasonable savings as possible over the past few years, so now many have to start doing things such as you can do buying cheaper and sometimes less nutritious food. It means parents are further cutting back on food themselves.”

Food vouchers 'the new norm'

Given the pressure on household budgets, Mr Moffatt said families have gone without other essentials to meet rising costs. He said the charity issuing food vouchers has become “the new norm” over the last two years.

“Given lower income families spend a higher proportion of their disposable income on groceries it will have disproportionate impact on them,” he added. “They need targeted supports.”

Sean Moynihan, CEO of older persons’ charity Alone, said that without cost-of-living supports last year, nearly half of older people living alone would have been at risk of poverty.

He pointed to recent responses to the charity’s cost-of-living survey as showing the plight many are facing. One respondent said: 

Buying the weekly healthy groceries becomes more and more difficult. Can’t afford necessary health supplements… which has impacted my wellbeing… Eat or heat has become reality. 

Another said: “I am just more careful what I buy now as I know I can’t afford certain things like meat or fish.”

Dominic Lumsden, a spokesman for broker Peopl Insurance, said that, anecdotally, they are hearing about pensioners having to leave their food behind at supermarket checkouts because they cannot afford today’s grocery prices.

“This is a situation that cannot continue and the Government must do something to tackle grocery inflation so that people can afford to put food on their table,” he said.

Speaking in Cork on Thursday, the finance minister Paschal Donohoe said he appreciated that the cost of living continues to be a challenge for many but said the rate of increase in prices in the economy are an “awful lot lower than it has been in previous years”.

“Every single budget that a government brings forward and that the previous government brought forward does find different ways of helping with cost of living challenges within our society,” he said. “But we do have to get the balance right.

“We are also living in very uncertain times — we have to be careful with our public finances.”