Social Welfare Code
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Eoin Hayes (SD), Dublin Bay South

There is also the context of housing. We know that poverty is increasing when we take housing into account. I do not lay that at the Minister’s door, and I believe it is a whole-of-government problem. The Minister said that he increased the fuel allowance by four weeks this year, and that was a welcome and needed measure. However, it is important for people to understand that it was actually a restoration. Fuel allowance was for 32 weeks before the austerity era. That is core to this whole problem: we do not look at indexation. The back-of-the-envelope calculations that I have done for social protection payments show they were worth more to people before austerity. We still have not closed the book on austerity, and what those payments would look like.
I absolutely welcome the change to the means test for carers. However, the disability allowance and blind pension have not been changed in several years. The jobseeker’s transition payment takes account of the minimum wage changes, which puts certain lone parents out of qualifying for the payment because of income disregards. The wage subsidy scheme is also not keeping up with the minimum wage in terms of the number of people it can employ. Therefore, there are real issues relating to indexation. I would encourage the Minister to finally close the book on austerity.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24