Spiralling numbers of pensioners and people on disability payments are driving a social welfare bill that has increased by more than a third in a decade, new data shows.
Expenditure on welfare payments was €27 billion last year, up from €19.9 billion in 2015.
The largest increases were in disability, illness and carers’ payments – up from €3.5 billion in 2015 to €6 billion last year (a rise of more than 70 per cent) – and in pensions, where the spend has increased from €6.7 billion 10 years ago to €11.1 billion last year (up 62 per cent).
The data is contained in the 2024 annual report on statistical information on social welfare services, published on Thursday by the Department of Social Protection.
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Child-related payments, including the universal child benefit and the one-parent family payment, cost €2.5 billion in 2015 and €3.3 billion last year – a 31 per cent increase.
However, working-age supports, such as jobseekers allowance and benefit, and maternity benefit, have decreased by 8 per cent from €4.5 billion to €4 billion since 2015.
An even sharper decrease has been seen in working-age employment supports, such as the community employment scheme, where the spend dropped 37 per cent, from €1 billion in 2015 to €661 million last year.
There were 2,416,223 people getting a welfare payment at the end of last year, up from 2,113,860 in 2015 – a 14.3 per cent increase.
Larger increases are seen in illness, disability and caring payments, from 340,304 recipients at the end of 2015 to 452,572 last year – a 33 per cent rise.
The number of pensioners went up from 577,331 in 2015 to 757,425 last year – a 31 per cent rise.
The largest increase was in child beneficiaries of the domiciliary care allowance (DCA) – a monthly payment of €360 to carers of disabled children up to age 16 – which has more than doubled.
Despite an arduous application process for the DCA, the number of children qualifying for it has gone up from 31,628 in 2015 to 64,729 last year (or by 104 per cent).
In demographic terms, the greatest number of beneficiaries last year were 15-year-old boys (39,883), most likely from the €140 per month child benefit payment, and, similarly, 14-year-old girls (38,207).
The fewest payments in volume were made to 94-year-old men (1,189) and 94-year-old women (2,510), probably in receipt of the State pension (€288 per week non-contributory for those aged 80 and older, or up to €302.90 for contributory) as well other payments including fuel allowance and living alone allowance.
In total, the report said: “Expenditure in 2024 represented 21.6 per cent of general Government expenditure and was equivalent to 6.7 per cent of gross national income.”
About 58 per cent were female and 42 per cent male, with 36 per cent of them children up to 18, and 25 per cent aged 66 or older.
