THE GOVERNMENT HAS signed off on the dates that 10 cost-of-living support payments announced as part of Budget 2025 will be paid. 

The Budget included a €2.2 billion cost-of-living package with a number of once-off payments to be paid out by the end of the year.

Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys brought a memo to Cabinet this morning outlining the dates which the support payments are set to be paid.

These payments include the following:

• October Cost-of-Living Double Payment – 28 October
• €400 ‘Working Family’ Payment – 4 November
• €400 Disability Allowance – 4 November
• €300 Fuel Allowance – 4 November
• First double Child Benefit – 5 November
• €400 Carer Support Grant – 11 November
• €200 Living Alone Allowance – 11 November
• €100 per child of whom a Child Support Payment is due – 25 November
• Christmas Double Payment – 2 December
• Second double Child Benefit – 3 December

Humphreys told colleagues that the first of these payments will be the €400 lump sum payment for recipients of Disability, Carer’s and Working Family payments, as well as Invalidity and Blind Pension recipients. This will be paid on the week commencing 28 October.  

The following week of 4 November will see the €400 Working Family Payment, the €400 Disability Support Grant and the €300 lump sum payment for households in receipt of the fuel allowance paid. 

The first of two Double Child Benefit Payments will also be made that week.

The following week, beginning 11 November, will see a €400 lump sum payment issued to those receiving the Carer’s Support Grant. 

There will also be a €200 Living Alone Allowance paid to people aged 66 years or over who are in receipt of social welfare payments, such as State pensions, widow’s and widower’s pensions. Some people under the age of 66 qualify if living alone and are in receipt of long-term illness and disability payments, such as disability allowance, invalidity pension, incapacity supplement and blind pension.

The €100 lump sum for people in receipt of the Child Support Grant, formerly known as ‘Qualified Child’, will be paid on the week beginning 25 November. 

Finally, the first week of December will see the ‘Christmas Bonus’ double payment and the second Double Child Benefit Payment made.

Speaking today, Minister Humphreys said the 10 lump sum payments are worth over €1.4 billion and “will support our pensioners, carers, people with disabilities and families over the coming months”.

“Budget 2025 represents the largest social protection budget package in the history of the State,” she added.

Members of the opposition have criticised some of the one-off payments, describing them as an attempt to buy the upcoming general election.

‘Attempt to bribe people’

Speaking to reporters this morning, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said these one-off payments before Christmas are a cynical attempt to bribe the public before an election. 

“All of these one-off payments are an attempt to bribe people as we head towards an election and to mask the fact that once that election is over and we get to next year, people will be no better off.

“And some people, some of the most vulnerable people, the least well off, and those with disabilities and special needs, will actually be worse off,” Boyd Barrett said.

He added that this was “shameful” given the record budget surplus this year. 

With reporting by Órla Ryan and Jane Matthews