{"id":168801,"date":"2025-12-01T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/168801\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T07:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:00:07","slug":"christmas-bonus-welfare-payments-to-be-paid-to-1-5m-people-this-week-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/168801\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas bonus welfare payments to be paid to 1.5m people this week \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Almost 1.5 million people in the poorest households will receive the welfare <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/christmas\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/christmas\/\">Christmas<\/a> bonus this week as many experience what Minister for Social Protection <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dara-calleary\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dara-calleary\/\">Dara Calleary<\/a> described as \u201cpressure &#8230; in the run up to Christmas\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He announced payment arrangements to long-term <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/social-welfare-payments\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/social-welfare-payments\/\">welfare<\/a> recipients including pensioners, carers, disabled people, the unemployed, and lone parents. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The bonus is worth 100 per cent of their payment, meaning recipients &#8211; 1,471,000 in all &#8211; will get a double-payment of their welfare amount. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">These are worth between \u20ac244 per week for payments like the one parent family payment and jobseekers benefit, to \u20ac261 for carer\u2019s allowance, to \u20ac289.30 for the state pension (contributory). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI am very conscious of the pressure families are under particularly in the run up to Christmas,\u201d said Minister Calleary. \u201cThe Christmas bonus is a vital support, particularly for our senior citizens. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThat\u2019s why I am pleased to announce the details of the Christmas Bonus Payments today. 1.5 million people will benefit including our pensioners, people with disabilities, carers, and lone parents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cPeople will receive their bonus payment on the same day that they usually receive their weekly pension or other primary payment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There is no Christmas bonus in respect of child benefit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Payments totalling \u20ac370 million will be issued to a total of 1,471,000 people. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAs always, I would encourage people, where possible, to shop locally in the run-up to Christmas this year,\u201d said Minister Calleary. \u201cBy shopping locally, you are supporting your local economy, your local community and your local small businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The payment will go to 348,200 people in Dublin, 159,100 in Cork and 64,300 in Limerick. The counties with the fewest recipients will be Leitrim (11,800), Longford (13,900) and Monaghan (18,600). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/social-affairs\/2025\/11\/02\/state-writes-off-more-than-15m-in-social-welfare-overpayments-across-two-years\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">State writes off more than \u20ac15m in incorrect social welfare payments across two yearsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost 1.5 million people in the poorest households will receive the welfare Christmas bonus this week as many&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9484,44403,16570,42,43,44405,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-168801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-christmas","9":"tag-carer-s-allowance","10":"tag-dara-calleary","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-social-welfare-payments","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}