Social Justice Ireland calls for increased welfare and child benefit rates in 2024 budget

Social Justice Ireland has called for increased welfare and child benefit rates in the budget for 2024 as the cost of living crisis persists.

“There must be no repetition of the disgraceful outcomes of the last Budget which saw the rich/poor gap widen and left Ireland’s most vulnerable people worse off in 2023 than they had been in 2022” – said Dr Séan Healy, CEO of Social Justice Ireland.

“There must be no repetition of the disgraceful outcomes of the last Budget which saw the rich/poor gap widen and left Ireland’s most vulnerable people worse off in 2023 than they had been in 202,” he said.

Susanne Rogers, Research and Policy Analyst with Social Justice Ireland, said “the geopolitical instability triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to unfold and is likely to have further effects on living costs and living standards across 2024.”

“It is lower-income households that are most exposed to these effects, households that have the least capacity to absorb these higher day-to-day living costs.”

Rogers stated “if Government is serious about meeting its own poverty targets and supporting households on the lowest incomes who, through good and bad economic times, struggle to live life on a low income, then core welfare rates must increase by a minimum of €25 in Budget 2024. A €50 increase in the monthly Child Benefit payment is also required to address Ireland’s levels of child poverty. ”

“Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in any society. Child benefit remains a key route to tackling child poverty and is of particular value to those families on the lowest incomes.  Adequate levels of social welfare are essential to addressing poverty. Income adequacy cannot be addressed by one-off measures”.

In the budget for 2023, the weekly Jobseekers Allowance was raised from €203 to €220, while child benefit was raised to €140 a month in last year’s budget.

A series of one-off bonus payments were added to the budget as a way of combating the cost of living crisis, but Social Justice Ireland has said “robust social dialogue is urgently required” to help Ireland face it’s current challenges.

Michelle Murphy, Research and Policy Analyst with Social Justice Ireland said “as a country we face some significant challenges, but we are also in the unprecedented position of having a very large budget surplus due to windfall gains from corporate tax revenue. Government, through a social dialogue process, combined with careful management and strategic investment of this surplus, could improve the standard of living, quality of life and wellbeing of all the republic’s residents.”