Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I was pleased to announce on Budget Day that a 100% Christmas Bonus will be paid this year benefitting 1.3 million people in receipt of long-term social welfare payments. The Bonus will be paid during the week beginning the 5th of December and will cost approximately €294 million.

The Bonus includes payments to pensioners, people with disabilities, carers, lone parents and the long-term unemployed in recognition of their long-term financial dependence on their social welfare payment for all, or most, of their income.

Illness Benefit is not, and has never been, a qualifying payment for the Christmas Bonus. It is a scheme which, by its nature, is a short-term social welfare scheme. It has a high degree of churn with people coming onto the scheme and moving off every week, often with very short duration claims. For example, between July and September 2022, almost 115,000 Illness Benefit claims were awarded and, of these, only 21,000 remain in payment. This indicates a churn of 82% over just a three-month period. The average duration of a claim for Illness Benefit is only 6 days.

I do appreciate however that individual circumstances can vary from case to case. I have asked my officials to examine this issue in respect of people who are in receipt of Illness Benefit for longer periods of time.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.