Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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735. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to increase the living alone allowance (details supplied). [37264/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The living alone allowance is an additional payment of €9 per week made to people aged 66 years or over who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments, including state pensions, and who are living alone. It is also available to people who are under 66 years of age who are living alone and are in receipt of disability allowance, invalidity pension, incapacity supplement and blind pension.

In June this year, I introduced a new telephone support allowance of €2.50 per week for people who were in receipt of both the living alone allowance and fuel allowance, ensuring the additional payment was targeted at people living alone, including pensioners, of limited means.

The appropriate rate of weekly social welfare payments, including pension payments and the Living Alone Allowance, will be considered by the Government in the context of the upcoming Budget, in light of available resources and other priorities. In this regard, each €1 increase in the Living Alone Allowance would cost an estimated €10.9 million in 2019 and a full year. This cost is subject to change in the context of emerging trends and associated revision of the estimated numbers of recipients for 2019.