![\"Euro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0_GettyImages-2148388310.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA payment shake-up is coming next month<\/p>\n
April brings the final Fuel Allowance payment, Easter bank holiday changes and Carer’s Support Grant applications opening(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
April is nearly upon us and it will bring several significant dates that social welfare<\/a> recipients should be aware of.<\/p>\n A social welfare scheme’s current season will come to an end while applications for an annual grant will commence. There will also be a change to payment dates.<\/p>\n Here’s everything you need to know:<\/p>\n Fuel Allowance end date<\/p>\n A new end date for the Fuel Allowance has been confirmed as the Government try to tackle soaring fuel costs, reports Dublin Live<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Fuel Allowance season normally begins in late September of each year and ends in April. The 2025\/2026 Fuel Allowance season started on Monday, September 22, 2025. It was originally set to be paid for 28 weeks until April 3, 2026.<\/p>\n The government confirmed the new end date earlier this week as they have extended the payment for four weeks due to the recent increases in fuel costs. Now, the payment will end on May 1.<\/p>\n Easter bank holiday<\/p>\n With Good Friday and Easter Monday coming up, social welfare recipients have been warned of a major change to the payment schedule in April.<\/p>\n Due to the Easter bank holiday on Monday, April 6, payments scheduled for that day will be made available on the preceding Friday, April 3.<\/p>\n Because of the bank holiday, anyone receiving Child Benefit on Tuesday, April 7, will probably also be paid earlier, on the Friday or Saturday as well. This is to ensure that nobody faces a delayed payment due to the banks being closed.<\/p>\n Applications open for Carer’s Support grant<\/p>\n The Carer’s Support Grant is paid to carers once a year. It used to be called the Respite Care Grant.<\/p>\n This year, the Carer’s Support Grant will be paid on June 4, 2026. The annual grant is automatically paid to recipients of the Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit and Domiciliary Care Allowance.<\/p>\n If you are not receiving one of these payments, you may still qualify and can submit an application to check your eligibility. You can apply for the Carer’s Support Grant in 2026 at any time from April 2026 up until December 31, 2027.<\/p>\n Want to see more of the stories you love from the Irish Mirror? Making us your preferred source on Google<\/a> means you\u2019ll get more of our exclusives, top stories and must-read content straight away. To add Irish Mirror as a preferred source, simply click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A payment shake-up is coming next month April brings the final Fuel Allowance payment, Easter bank holiday changes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,11258],"class_list":{"0":"post-370861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-social-welfare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370861","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=370861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}