Pension and social welfare rises planned for Budget 2022, Varadkar says
Leo Varadkar said this week's gathering provides an opportunity to "regroup". Picture: Colin Keegan
Increases to the State pension and other social welfare payments are on the cards as part of next month's budget, the Tánaiste has confirmed.
Leo Varadkar has said he wants to return to the norm of yearly increases to pensions and other payments but said the level of increase for next year is still being hammered out.
He pointed to the fact that there hasn't been an increase in the pension or basic weekly payments for a number of years which was "acceptable at a time when the cost of living wasn't rising".
But he said we have now seen a return to inflation and Fine Gael will be pushing to ensure payments increase in line with the cost of living through measures in October's budget.
"Anyone who pulls into the petrol station, anyone who goes to supermarket will tell you that the cost of living is rising again. And as a party, we're all about protecting people's incomes, that applies to pensioners and people on welfare too," he told reporters at Fine Gael's think-in in Trim, Co. Meath.
Mr Varadkar added: "It was actually unusual in the past two years that we didn't do that, largely because we were storing reserves for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.
"We'd like to get back to normal, and that was having a tax and welfare pensions package in every budget to protect people from the rising cost of living," he said.
The Tánaiste along with Ministers Simon Coveney and Paschal Donohoe also apologised to party members over the Zappone controversy at a private session at the Fine Gael think-in this morning.
"I think everyone in Fine Gael realises that we had a difficult summer," he told reporters afterwards.
However, Mr Varadkar said the summer is "over now" and this week's gathering provides an opportunity to "regroup".
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