Social Welfare Payments
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-07
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Jerry Buttimer (FG), Cork South-Central

-----to increase it to €7.50. I will certainly feed that back to the Minister as part of the Government's deliberations on next year's budget.
The Government is committed to supporting older persons and persons with disability. Given the many competing demands for the limited funding available in the Department of Social Protection, there was no increase in the telephone support allowance in budget 2026. Other supports provided by the Department, however, were increased in that budget, including the €10 increase in the weekly rate in social welfare payments and the €5 increase in the fuel allowance. It is important also to recognise that in that fuel allowance piece, we are providing an additional €140 during the annual fuel allowance season. This will provide support of €1,064 to a household during a 28-week fuel season. In response to the increase in energy prices due to the war in the Middle East, the fuel allowance season was extended by a further four weeks to the end of April, which provided an additional €152 to recipients.
To receive the telephone support allowance, a customer must be in receipt of a qualifying payment and also in receipt of both the living alone allowance and the fuel allowance. This means that those in receipt of the allowance already receive considerable support from the Department. However, there is, to be fair to the Deputy, merit in the consideration of this because I believe that more and more people are looking to us in terms of mobile phone connectivity.
The household benefits package is available to those in receipt of the telephone support allowance. This comprises of an electricity or gas allowance and a free television licence, which is worth approximately €580 a year. Furthermore, the Department of Social Protection provides for a means-tested additional needs payment as part of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which helps people meet essential expenses that they cannot pay from their weekly income. These payments are available through community welfare officers.
Increasing the rate of household-based schemes, such as the living alone increase and the fuel allowance, provides targeted support to households that are at a higher risk of poverty. Any proposal to increase the rate payable for the telephone support allowance could only be considered in the budgetary context. Telephone companies and operators have an obligation and duty as well to look at that, in terms of some of our older people, in their packages. They can tailor some of their packages to suit older people.
I will bring the Deputy's remarks back to the Minister. In fairness, we are hearing on a day-to-day basis of people needing their phones more and using them more, even to stay in touch. It is that element of fear. As I said, we are working with ALONE about changing the senior citizens alert scheme. We will have more information on that at a later date.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-07