{"id":221213,"date":"2026-01-01T06:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T06:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/221213\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T06:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T06:10:07","slug":"more-than-1-5m-to-receive-average-of-e520-this-year-from-social-welfare-increases-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/221213\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 1.5m to receive average of \u20ac520 this year from social welfare increases \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 1.5 million people in receipt of core weekly social welfare payments<\/a> are to receive an average of \u20ac520 more this year as part of a \u20ac1 billion package.<\/p>\n

The increases agreed under Budget 2026<\/a> will take effect from Thursday and will see a \u20ac10 uplift in the maximum rate of all core weekly payments.<\/p>\n

This will benefit more than 1.5 million people, including pensioners, carers, those with disabilities, and jobseekers, according to the Department of Social Protection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Weekly rates of the child support payment are also set to rise from January 1st by \u20ac16 to \u20ac78 for children aged 12 and over. Rates for children aged under 12 will rise by \u20ac8 to \u20ac58.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the largest ever increases to the weekly child support payments and will help alleviate child poverty by supporting over 330,000 children,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

Separately, the income thresholds for the working family payment will increase by \u20ac60 per week for all family sizes. <\/p>\n

The department said this would benefit more than 48,000 families currently in receipt of the payment, while more households will become eligible due to the increase.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Tighter budgets in prospect under planned 6% cap on spending hikesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

More than 414,000 households in receipt of the fuel allowance<\/a> will see a \u20ac5 increase, bringing weekly payments to \u20ac38. <\/p>\n

The domiciliary care allowance, a monthly payment for children under 16 who have a severe disability<\/a>, will increase from \u20ac360 to \u20ac380. The payment is currently made in respect of more than 73,000 children.<\/p>\n

The total cost of the increases is \u20ac1.09 billion, and are in addition to the \u20ac370 million in Christmas bonus payments made in early December, said Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Calleary noted that further budget measures will come into effect throughout 2026, including the extension of the fuel allowance scheme to families in receipt of the working family payment, and increases to the weekly income disregards for the carer\u2019s allowance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1.5 million people in receipt of core weekly social welfare payments are to receive an average…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5168,16570,14313,420,44404,26934,42,43,44405,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-221213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-budget","tag-dara-calleary","tag-department-of-social-protection","tag-disability","tag-disability-allowance","tag-fuel-allowance","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-social-welfare-payments","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221213","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=221213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}