Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach, leis an gcoiste agus leis an gcléireach as an gcuireadh a thabhairt dom a bheith ina gcomhluadar inniu chun plé a dhéanamh ar na Meastúcháin Athbhreithnithe don Roinn Coimirce Sóisialaí don bhliain 2025.

I thank the Chair, members of the committee and the clerk for their invitation to be here today to discuss the 2025 Revised Estimates. Given the general election cycle, this is one of the occasions that the Estimates, of necessity, are presented deep into the year at a time when the Department has already spent a large proportion of the budget, as set out in the Revised Estimates Volume, REV. Nevertheless, it is important to deal with it. I look forward not just to working with the committee today but in the course of the next four and a half years and to getting feedback and engaging with the committee.

To date, the Department has already spent more than €11 billion in 2025, supporting various groups within society, including families with children, pensioners, people with disabilities and carers, and working-age individuals facing different contingencies such as illness and unemployment. We also provide ongoing support to those who have come to Ireland seeking support, fleeing war, notably from Ukraine, but also under UN programmes from the Middle East and Africa.

The assistance that the Department provides is both in the form of payments and also through services like employment supports and programmes such as the school meals programme. Reflecting on my first five months in the role, it is not the expenditure that stands out, but the experience of travelling across the country and engaging with various groups. This includes those who rely on support from the Department, the exceptionally dedicated staff of the Department across the country who strive to serve them, and the broader community of advocates and volunteers in NGOs and the community and voluntary pillar nationwide, all of whom work collectively and tirelessly to support those most in need.

In framing the financial Estimates position for 2025, and comparing it with the outturn for 2024, my officials have sought to provide the committee with a like-for-like comparison between the two years. This includes isolating estimates for the cost of the Christmas bonus and all the other exceptional cost-of-living supports delivered in the final quarter of last year as part of the budget 2025 measures. Similarly, the cost of temporary protection for Ukrainians measures, which are outside of the normal business-as-usual profile, are separately identified in the briefing documents before the committee today.

The Revised Estimates, which the committee is to consider today, reflects a provision for 2025. As we all know, this is a year that exhibits increasing external uncertainty for the economic outlook of Ireland and the world. Projected spending for the Department in 2025 is €26.9 billion compared with an estimated outturn for 2024 of €26.99 billion. However, it should be borne in mind that spending in 2024 was boosted by the inclusion of more than €1.7 billion in one-off, cost-of-living supports.

The work of the Department is broad in scope, supporting people throughout the life cycle, from the registration of birth and payment of child benefit to the provision of income support when people reach pension age. The Department's expenditure, at €26.99 billion for 2024, continues to be the largest of any Department, representing more than one third of gross current Government expenditure.

I agree with the Chair that we must ensure our social protection system is properly structured and provides support when people need it most, including at times of national and international crisis.

In recent years, it provided support when people needed it most, including at times of national and international crisis. In recent years, the Department and its staff, along with others across the public service, have provided support to people through a pandemic, then supported those displaced by war, dealt with a very significant a cost-of-living challenge and, in addition to economic storms, supported people with literal storms, most recently with Storm Éowyn in January of this year. Each of these would normally be considered a once-in-a-lifetime event but all of them have occurred in a concentrated, five-year period. The Department's budget for the humanitarian assistance scheme is a particular example of this flexibility of response.

In 2025, as is traditional, we have allocated €200,000 to this scheme as part of the Revised Estimates, given what we considered the rarity of these events. However, driven by Storm Éowyn, we have already spent over €13 million supporting people throughout the country through this scheme. We will address this as part of the Supplementary Estimate later this year. It is a testament to the agility of Department staff and our systems and schemes that they responded repeatedly and effectively to this unprecedented series of challenges. This is while also maintaining the routine but critically important "business as usual" work, conducting, for example, about 200,000 one-on-one employment support meetings with jobseekers, carrying out nearly 700,000 control reviews, issuing nearly 1 million public service cards, answering over 4 million phone calls, processing approximately 4 million claims and making approximately 100 million payments year after year, while simultaneously developing and rolling out major initiatives, including in the area of online service delivery, pensions reform and school meals. I know committee members will join me in acknowledging this work and thanking the staff of the Department throughout the country.

The projected 2025 expenditure of €26.9 billion is close to a normalisation of the pattern of social protection spending, but it represents a new normal at a higher level of expenditure. With additional budget measures of more than €1 billion, budget 2025 represented the third record-breaking social protection budget in a row, providing a targeted mixture of once-off and ongoing measures, which the ESRI’s post-budget analysis has shown are effective in protecting most households from rising prices, especially the most vulnerable in society. In 2024, we provided lump sum payments in two phases, first through a January bonus and then later in the year, across quarter 4, providing assistance to people when it was most needed. The January bonus in 2024 provided a double week of welfare payments, at a cost of €334 million. This had originally been announced as part of budget 2024. Then, as part of budget 2025, we provided more than €1.4 billion in a package of once-off measures in quarter 4 of 2024, supporting a wide range of social protection customers, including pensioners, families with children, people with disabilities and those of working age.

A wide range of social protection increases came into effect in January 2025. These include another €12 across-the-board increase to weekly rates, with higher increases provided for some schemes, including maternity benefit. We have also seen the introduction of a new payment, the newborn baby grant, which supports young families and recognises the happy event of a new birth. This is, however, a happy event that also gives rise to peaks in cost pressures.

These measures are reflected in the expenditure subheads presented today. The biggest single block of expenditure in 2025 will be on pensions, which will amount to more than €11.3 billion or just over 42% of overall expenditure, up by almost €817 million from the 2024 outturn, net of lump sum payments. Some €333 million of this increase is linked to additional recipient numbers, a fact which reflects the ever-increasing demographic challenge. Thankfully, people are living longer lives but that means an increasing proportion of the Department's expenditure is spent on providing income support for people in their older years. That is why the reforms introduced, including the phased migration to a total contributions approach, the introduction of pension deferral options and the phased increase in PRSI contribution rates, are so important, as is the introduction of enhanced pension entitlements for long-term carers. The launch of the new auto-enrolment retirement savings scheme, My Future Fund, from January next year will also be key to addressing this challenge.

Expenditure on illness, disability and the carer's payment amounts to €6.022 billion in 2025, representing 22.4% of the Department’s expenditure. Again, as the population ages this is an expenditure line that is increasing. Working age income supports, amounting to €4.15 billion, will account for just under 16% of expenditure in 2025. This includes payments for jobseekers, one-parent families, maternity and paternity payments and supplementary welfare allowance. An important change under this programme, which is reflected in the Revised Estimates, was the launch in March of the pay-related jobseeker’s benefit, which will help cushion the income shock that comes with unemployment. Expenditure on employment supports is estimated at €657 million, representing 2.4% of total expenditure. These supports are not only hugely important for the individuals who receive them but also for programmes such as community employment, Tús, and the rural social scheme. These and other employment support schemes provide vital help to assist people transition from welfare to employment. It is important that we retain, maintain and develop them, particularly if we are to respond to the global economic headwinds of which we are all aware and that may materialise in the months and years ahead.

Expenditure on children and families, at just under €3 billion, of which over €2.2 billion will be spent on child benefit and €300 million on the school meals programme, will account for more than 11% of expenditure. Expenditure on supplementary payments amounts to €973 million and represents 3.6% of 2025 expenditure.

I have presented a broad overview. I know members will agree that the figures do not represent the story of the impact this expenditure has on people, families and communities. I hope this material provides a comprehensive analysis of expenditure on the largest Estimate before the Oireachtas. This year will bring challenges for social protection spending, including increased recipient numbers on large schemes such as the State pension, the State contributory pension and disability allowance. However, in my short time as Minister, I have become convinced that my Department has the ability to effectively support the most vulnerable and deliver the programme for Government’s commitments in relation to social protection supports. However, neither I nor my Department claims to have all the expertise and knowledge. As I have tried to do during my time in office, I want to have a collaborative working relationship with this committee.