Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for her question. A core objective of my Department is the reduction of poverty. The at-risk-of-poverty rate is a relative income poverty measure, tracking the national equivalised median income as it rises and falls. In other words, it compares each person's income to the income of the person in the middle of the income distribution. For a person to be assessed as at risk of poverty, their equivalised income must be lower than 60% of this median value.

This also means that if median incomes rise faster than the rate of inflation, as they have in Ireland, more people can be reported as being at risk of poverty even if the value of their own income is maintained in real terms. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, reports an inflation-adjusted measure to account for this effect. In Ireland, what is known as the anchored at risk of poverty, which is the measure that tracks inflation, fell from 13.2% in 2020 to 9.1% in the 2022 survey on income and living conditions, SILC. It is also important to note that the 2022 SILC data are based on income from the 2021 calendar year and, as a result, are considerably out of date. They do not include or reflect the very significant increases and improvements for pensioners introduced by the Government in budgets 2022 and 2023, and in a series of cost-of-living measures.

These increases and improvements included a total €17 increase in the weekly rate of State pension payment since 2022, along with a double payment in October 2022, the Christmas bonus in December 2022 and an additional €200 lump sum paid in April 2023.

For those in receipt of the living alone increase, fuel allowance or carer’s support grant, further one-off lump-sum payments were made. The fuel allowance scheme was also expanded through improvements to the means test for those aged over 70. These households would also have benefited from the electricity credit scheme. This Government has already responded in a big way to cost pressures faced by older people and we will continue to do so in the context of the forthcoming budget. I trust this clarifies the matter.

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