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1st October 2024.......While the temporary supports in Budget 2025 are welcome and will help through the winter, permanent increases are not enough to help keep pace with the cost of living, according to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SVP).
The Society says that while prices are now increasing more slowly, the cost of living crisis hasn’t gone away. “Prices for essential goods and services are now significantly higher than they were in 2020. The €12 per increase announced in the budget makes up some ground but falls far short of the €20 we recommended to restore the rate to 2020 levels. In the last four years there has been a cumulative increase of 16.8% in the costs of meeting a Minimum Essential Standard of Living, the amount needed to make sure people can afford a basic but decent standard of living.
Rose McGowan, SVP National President says “the double payment of Child Benefit will benefit all children, including those at risk of poverty, experiencing deprivation and in low income working households. But the opportunity to use this government’s last budget to give permanent additional support to the children who need it most was missed due to inadequate increases in the Qualified Child Increase. As a consequence we fear the families SVP support will continue to forego essentials on a weekly basis as the QCI is not enough to meet their weekly needs.”
“While once off payments will help people this winter and provide temporary support to people living in poverty, the real value of weekly social welfare payments, including essential targeted payments for children, has been eroded by the increasing cost of essentials like food, rent and energy. Households need to budget on a weekly basis and needed an adequate weekly increase in social welfare payments to reflect this. They need stability over the longer term.
“The Budget measures have not tackled the underlying insecurity for people in poverty, who are often one unexpected bill or rent increase away from a crisis. We still have 890,000 people in material deprivation of which 230,000 are children and 550,000 people at risk of poverty of which 170,000 are children” she said.
Nessan Vaughan, Chair of the SVP Social Justice Committee said; “The social protection system must move in line with other European countries and use a benchmarking approach to make sure it provides a decent standard of living and prevents poverty. Benchmarking the basic rate of social welfare to the cost of a Minimum Essential Standard of living would mean that rates would never be so low that people are unable to afford essentials such as food, utility bills, housing, transport, basic household goods and having the means to participate in our community.
Commenting on specific measures, SVP says that extending the Fuel Allowance to carers is a welcome move. But this payment should also have been extended to those in receipt of the Working Family Payment in order to target the payment at children in working families experiencing energy poverty.
SVP is critical that the government continue to use temporary and universal electricity credits, instead of moving to permanent and targeted supports that would help those who are struggling with energy costs that are set to remain high. Last year over half a million households in Ireland went without heating due to cost and increasing the Fuel Allowance permanently would have been the best use of government resources, alongside expanding access to retrofitting for renters, and the introduction of a Community Energy Advice Service.
The introduction of free school books for the senior cycle means that the cost of education has been reduced for children right through their school life. This is an achievement the government should be proud of. SVP saw a reduction in the number of requests for help with back to school costs over the past two years following on from the introduction of this policy measure. “We hope that this progress will be continued in the next Programme For Government, with a focus on tackling the other education costs burdening parents including ‘voluntary’ contributions and ‘registration’ fees as well as costly uniforms” said Rose McGowan.
On housing, SVP welcomes the investments in new social and affordable homes, though are concerned these won’t go far enough. The Budget is weak on homelessness prevention and tenancy sustainment measures. The increase in the Rent Tax Credit isn’t available to households we support who are availing of the Housing Assistance Payment and paying unsustainable and unaffordable ‘top-ups’ to their landlord every month. We also wanted to see a dedicated support worker for every child facing homelessness, and are disappointed not to see this investment in Budget 2025.
