Social Welfare Payments Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26 ============================================================ Séamus McGrath (FF), Cork South-Central I ask the Minister to increase the living alone allowance in recognition of the significantly lower income available to qualifying single income householders relative to couples. It is widely acknowledged that the household costs and cost-of-living challenges for people living alone are quite significant. When we compare a couple, for example, versus a single income household, there is quite a significant difference. The living alone allowance is designed to bridge that gap but, unfortunately, it does not go anywhere near enough. I ask the Minister to please consider this increase in the upcoming budget. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-26