Overview - Poverty Related Targets in Ireland
The Department of Social Protection highlights the Roadmap for Social Inclusion as an overarching statement of government strategy, which acknowledges the range of sectoral plans already in place that have social inclusion as a core objective, in areas such as education, health, children and childcare, community development and housing. These plans remain key to ensuring that social inclusion is at the core of public policy and service strategy across all government departments and services.
Progress towards the Roadmap goals are set out in Annual Progress Reports, with associated Report Cards which detail progress on each of the 81 Roadmap commitments.
- Target 1.2 relates to reducing poverty as nationally defined. In Ireland, the national social target for poverty reduction is to reduce consistent poverty to 2% or less. In the 2022 Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), the rate of consistent poverty was 5.3% compared to 4.0% the previous year.
- The consistent poverty rate for females of 5.7% was higher than the male rate of 5.0% in 2022.
- Young people were more likely to be in consistent poverty than older people. In 2022, the consistent poverty rate was 7.5% for people under the age of 18, compared with a rate of 3.3% for people aged 65 years and over.
- The consistent poverty rate in urban areas was 5.7% in 2022, above the rate of 4.6% in rural areas.
- The consistent poverty rate is heavily influenced by the number of people at work in a household. In 2022, the consistent poverty rate in a household with no people at work was 13.8%, over twice the rate of 6.5% where one person is at work.
- While it is disappointing to see an increase in the consistent poverty rate, as it had been steadily declining since it peaked at 9.0% in the 2013 survey, some caution must be exercised in interpreting the figure as it is based on 2021 income, a period when the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted incomes. In addition, measures from Budgets 2022 and 2023 are not reflected in the incomes data.
- In terms of Target 1.3, which relates to implementing social protection systems with substantial coverage of the poor and vulnerable, Ireland continues to have one of the most effective systems of social transfers in the EU in terms of poverty prevention. In the 2022 survey, the at risk of poverty rate before social transfers would have been 36.5%. After social transfers, it was 13.1%, which is a poverty reduction impact of 64.0%.
Progress to date
Budget 2024 represented the largest Social Protection Budget in the history of the state and included a range of measures to assist pensioners, carers, people with disabilities, and families with the cost of living through a mix of lump sum supports and increases to weekly payments. A total of nine lump sum payments were paid between November 2023 and January 2024. These include:
- A Christmas Bonus double payment paid in December 2023 with a further January double payment, benefiting over 1.3 million people;
- A double payment of Child Benefit in December 2023, supporting 650,000 families in respect of 1.2 million children;
- 45,000 families, with 97,000 children, in receipt of the Working Family Payment, received an extra €400 in November 2023;
- People in receipt of the Disability Support Grant and Carer’s Support Grant received a bonus €400 payment in November 2023;
- A €300 Fuel Allowance lump sum was paid to 409,000 households who qualify for the support in November 2023; and
- Once-off payments of €100 to people who get an increase for a qualified child and of €200 to people in receipt of the Living Alone Allowance in November 2023.
- Additionally Budget 2024 included:
- A €12 increase in the weekly rates of payments;
- An €4 increase in weekly rates of qualified child payments bringing them to €54 for those aged 12 and over and €46 for under 12s;
- The Carers Allowance Earnings Disregard increased to €450 for a single person and to €900 for a couple;
- Domiciliary Care Allowance increased by €10 to €340 per month; and
- Working Family Payment thresholds for all family sizes increased by €54.
The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025, published in January 2020, is a whole of government strategy with the ambitious target to reduce consistent poverty to 2.0% and make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive countries in the EU. It includes the commitment (#40) to set a new national child poverty target, so a public consultation was launched in November 2023 and closed for submissions on January 19 2024. This feeds into the wider whole of government approach to address child poverty, including the establishment of a new Child Poverty and Well Being Programme Office in the Department of the Taoiseach.
