Social Welfare Benefits
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
============================================================

Tony McCormack (FF), Offaly

It is great news that the majority of those who receive the benefit do not proceed to the second stage, which means the job market in Ireland is buoyant and people are able to find alternative employment. Building on that, I believe this approach should form a cornerstone of how we think about social welfare supports more broadly. It is about recognising contributions, supporting people through difficult periods and helping them to return to work in a sustainable way.
Can the Minister outline whether there are plans to further develop or extend pay-related supports and how the Government intends to ensure the principle of recognising and rewarding contributions remains central to our social protection system?

---

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/2026-04-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-30