Cost of Living Issues
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The truth is we are going to have the highest inflation rates in two years. They are not back to the extremely high rates we saw before that, but they are high. The whole premise upon which the Government justified not continuing with the cost-of-living payments was that inflation had returned to normal rates. There was a logic set out that has been confounded by reality, yet the Government is sticking with its position of no return of one-off payments.
The Minister knows that the impact of the withdrawal of one-off payments was very hard for the poorer sections of society. As a result of getting rid of the one-off payments, the bottom 10% lost 4.4% of their income. The next 10% lost 3.9%, so there were huge cuts in income and then particularly cruel, savage cuts reserved for disabled people of about €1,400 per year.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18