Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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189. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she intends to address the anomaly whereby someone who was on one social welfare payment and was entitled to the Christmas bonus, and has moved to another social welfare payment is not entitled to the spring cost-of-living payment, despite having been on a social welfare payment for longer than 12 months. [25362/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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A Christmas bonus was paid, for the first time, to long term recipients of Illness Benefit in December 2022. Illness Benefit had not been a qualifying payment for the Christmas Bonus prior to this as it is a short-term social protection scheme. It has a high degree of turnover, with people coming onto the scheme and moving off every week. The average number of days a person receives Illness Benefit for is 6 days.

As part of the overall Government response to the cost of living crisis, a decision was taken to pay a Christmas bonus to Illness Benefit customers who had been receiving Illness Benefit for a year or more. Earlier this year, it was decided to pay a spring Cost of Living bonus to Illness Benefit customers based on the same criteria.

Illness Benefit is available for a defined period and it does not link to most other social welfare payments. If these payments were linked, this may result in the number of days that Illness Benefit is payable being reduced, adversely affecting customers who may need support from Illness Benefit in the future.

I trust the above clarifies the position.