Cost of Living Issues
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-10
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

We did take interventions in the budget to support people. In this Dáil we did not provide energy credits to anybody, but we did take a decision to bring in a range of targeted measures for those most in need. There is a legitimate debate on how best to do that and we have that debate back and forth across the floor. However, we introduced a social protection package of over €1 billion. We increased weekly payments to 1.5 million people, including our pensioners, carers and people with disabilities. These payments have been increased by more than €50 over the past number of years. We increased the domiciliary care allowance. We have the largest ever increase in the child support payment. To help working families, which we rightly talk a lot about in this House, we saw a large increase the threshold for the working family payment. We saw large increases in eligibility for fuel allowance. The minimum wage also increased. Next month, we will expand the fuel allowance for families receiving working family payment. Later this year we will introduce the largest ever increase in income disregards for carer's allowance. We will pay the carer's support grant. We are expanding the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance for preschool children. I accept the cost-of-living challenge is real; I do not doubt that. However, I disagree and push back on the idea that we did not take actions to try to assist.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-10