Social Welfare Payments
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-13
============================================================

Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

I presume the Minister is not disputing the fact that the budget made disabled people poorer, despite the measures he is announcing. The disability support grant was cut by €400. In respect of the living alone allowance, the lump sum of €200 was cut. That is another €200 gone. The fuel allowance was reduced for disabled people, resulting in a net loss of €160. The October double payment of €254 was cut. The electricity credits of €250 were cut. The total value of one-off supports taken away from disabled people is €1,404. Even when you take into account the small increases the Minister announced, disabled people will still be worse off to the tune of over €1,000. That is in nominal terms as opposed to real terms. In real terms, namely in the context of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, it is even worse. We know that the cost of having a disability in this country back in 2021 was over €10,000. Today, it is around €15,000.

---

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/2025-11-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-13