Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-24
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

What we did for child support payments was the most significant - record increases of €8 per week for children under 12, and €16 per week for children over 12. As part of the child poverty unit in my own Department, with the Minister, Deputy Calleary, we have focused on that child poverty package, which is permanent. Today, DEIS plus was approved by Cabinet. We have taken a series of measures that have worked on the child poverty issue and that will bear dividend in the coming years. Of that I have no doubt, because of our focus on those key areas.
The working family payment cohort of people who, up to the last budget were excluded from the fuel allowance, have now been included. That is an extra 50,000 working families. That means about 470,000 families or people overall are now benefiting from the fuel allowance. The extension will be welcomed by all of those families as a targeted measure. It is an instrument or mechanism we have within the Department of Social Protection to enable us to pay people and to give them additional allowances to help them to try to cope with the very large increases that have occurred over the last number of weeks. That will take it out to the end of April, in addition to the reduction in excise on diesel and petrol.

---

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/2026-03-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-24