PRESIDENT MICHAEL D. HIGGINS has signed off on the 2022 Social Welfare Bill, ensuring a €12 rise in weekly payments, and a €40 per week rise in working family payment thresholds. 

The bill will push through social welfare improvement measures costing over €1 billion next year. 

The bill will also provide for a €20.50 increase in the monthly rate of the domiciliary care allowance, and will make changes to the means test for the farm assist payment. 

The social welfare budget package had a chief aim of bringing in an across the board increase in weekly payments for pensioners, people with disabilities, carers and lone parents. 

The Government says it also includes measures that will allow more households to become eligible for the Working Family Payment. 

The increase to the domiciliary care allowance will be the first boost carers in receipt of the payment have gotten since 2009. 

There is also a €2 increase in payments in respect of children of social welfare recipients, bringing the payment to €42 per week for children under 12 and €50 per week for children aged 12 and over. 

Social Protection Minister Heather Humphries pointed out that these measures are on top of eight lump sum payments that were secured as part of Budget 2023 to assist families with the cost of living. 

Humphries said that she is delighted the Bill has now passed through both houses and has been signed into law by the President. 

“To ease the burden on low-income families, I am expanding the Working Family Payment thresholds so that more households will qualify for the payment.

 “I am also making changes to the Farm Assist Means Test to support our farmers and we’re continuing the policy of increasing the rates paid to children of people on social welfare payments,” she said. 

 The Minister also said that the bill will amend the rules of the domiciliary care allowance so that families who have babies who are born with serious conditions and have to remain in hospital after birth will qualify for the payment before they leave the hospital. 

“The changes in the Social Welfare Bill, together with the unprecedented series of Lump Sum Payments issued recently, are designed to put more money back in people’s pockets and assist families across the country with the cost of living,” the Minister added.