Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My Department’s allocation for 2016, at over €19.6 billion, is almost €2 billion, or 10.7%, higher than expenditure in 2008. That is a 10.7% increase in eight years. Inflation over the seven years to April 2016 was 2.9%, with inflation falling over the past two years. In the year to April 2016 we had no inflation. In fact, we have had deflation of 0.1%, as measured by the consumer price index in the past year.

After a series of very challenging years, improvements for people in receipt of social welfare payments began in budget 2015 and continued in budget 2016. This included increases in the weekly rates of payment for pensioners and the living alone allowance. In addition, new initiatives aimed at helping families were introduced, such as the back to work family dividend and a paternity benefit scheme which will commence payment later this year.

Looking ahead, the new Programme for a Partnership Government contains a number of significant commitments to enhance the welfare system in the years ahead. This includes increasing rent supplement limits by up to 15% and above-inflation increases for pensioners and in the living alone allowance. The programme also supports rate increases for people with disabilities and carers. As I mentioned earlier, the Government also has plans to extend social insurance benefits for the self-employed and to improve the treatment benefit scheme for all PRSI contributors.

I want to make progress on these commitments in the forthcoming budget and will seek to do so within the additional resources that will be available. I also look forward to engagement and input from my colleagues in the Oireachtas on this matter. I will be holding a pre-budget forum on 22 July next to which I have invited 40 representative organisations. I look forward to that engagement and will listen carefully to the views of the organisations attending.

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