\n A double payment of core social welfare rates at Christmas is on the cards, as negotiations ramp up for next Tuesday\u2019s budget.\n <\/p>\n
\n Government sources indicated social protection minister Dara Calleary is pressing for the annual Christmas bonus double payments on key welfare entitlements, including the State pension and jobseekers allowance.\n <\/p>\n
\n One source described the annual Christmas bonus as almost being a \u201cpermanent fixture\u201d, citing its prevalence in budgets throughout recent years.\n <\/p>\n
\n Mr Calleary is also pressing for a \u20ac12 hike in the core social welfare rates.\n <\/p>\n
\n Speaking in the D\u00e1il on Tuesday, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said the overall social protection package could be as high as \u20ac1.8bn.\n <\/p>\n
\n On the carer\u2019s allowance, Mr Martin said it would cost around \u20ac600m to abolish outright the means test, saying the Government would instead phase it out across its term.\n <\/p>\n
\n He said the Government would work to \u201cbalance\u201d changes to the carer\u2019s allowance, saying the Coalition wanted to take action on other welfare entitlements such as the Domiciliary Care Allowance.\n <\/p>\n
\n Meanwhile, the reduction of the Vat rate to 9% on the building of new apartments is \u201cmore likely than not\u201d, one Government source said.\n <\/p>\n
\n It is understood that it has been under consideration for a number of months.\n <\/p>\n
\n However, multiple Government sources highlighted that many major decisions for next Tuesday\u2019s budget will go down to the wire.\n <\/p>\n
\n It is expected that most items will be agreed either on Sunday or Monday, including the Social Protection budget.\n <\/p>\n
\n Meanwhile, it is expected that health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill will seek to maintain their current budget, with plans to focus on productivity.\n <\/p>\n
\n One source said the health budget would aim to do \u201cthe right things with what we have\u201d, citing the work of implementing the public-only consultant contracts.\n <\/p>\n
Arts minister Patrick O’Donovan, meanwhile, will push for an extension and possible expansion of the basic income scheme for artists.<\/p>\n
First launched as a pilot project in 2022, the scheme offers \u20ac325 a week to 2,000 people in the arts in Ireland. Thousands more who were eligible applied.<\/p>\n
A recently published review of the scheme found that for every \u20ac1 put into it, \u20ac1.39 of economic value was obtained.<\/p>\n
Speaking in New York last week, Mr O’Donovan said that he believes the scheme is worthwhile and should be extended.<\/p>\n
“Everybody talks about Ireland being a leader in terms of its cultural output over the last number of years, and really being in a position where you can hold a mirror up against the world and up against society and things like that.<\/p>\n
“In order to do that, you have to take away the precarious nature of what incomes people are deriving from it,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A double payment of core social welfare rates at Christmas is on the cards, as negotiations ramp up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5244,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-54391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-budget-2026","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54391","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=54391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}