Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 June 2025
337. Deputy Conor D. McGuinness asked the Minister for Social Protection for an update on progress toward the Roadmap for Social Inclusion targets specifically relating to poverty amongst older persons; the data sources used to track these targets; his views on the challenges and interventions identified to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33360/25]
View answerThe Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 is a whole of Government strategy with the ambitious aim of reducing consistent poverty to 2 per cent or less and to make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive member states in the EU. The Roadmap was published in January 2020 and contains seven high level goals, with 81 commitments.
Goal three of the Roadmap is "Supporting Older People." This goal aims to protect the incomes of older people through the delivery of the commitment to benchmark State pension payments.
Progress made to date on the delivery of this goal includes:
• Annual increases to the maximum weekly rate of all state pensions under each Budget since 2020, with proportionate increases for people getting a reduced rate.
• Cost-of-living payments targeting pensioners since 2022.
• Reforms to the State Pension system were announced in September 2022, in response to the Pensions Commission's recommendations. A smoothed earnings method to calculate a benchmarked/indexed rate of State Pension payments was introduced in 2023 as an input to the annual budget process.
• The largest ever expansion of the Fuel Allowance Scheme in 2023.
• The HSE's National Dementia Office published the Model of Care for Dementia Care in May 2023.
• Under the Capital Programme for Older Persons Residential Centres, work has been ongoing to replace, upgrade and refurbish care facilities at 90 locations.
Progress towards achieving the aim of the Roadmap are measured using the Survey of Income and Living Standards (SILC), which is published by the Central Statistics office annually. Additional data comes from the EU-SILC, published by Eurostat, which provides comparisons across the 27 EU member states.
Since the publication of the Roadmap in 2020, consistent poverty for older people has remained relatively stable. It was reported as being 2% in SILC 2024. Additionally, at an EU level the at-risk-of-poverty-or-social-exclusion rate for older people has reduced from 20.8% in 2018 to 16.7% in 2024, below the EU average of 21.0% in 2024. It should also be noted that the 2024 data is based on 2023 incomes, therefore not taking account of Budget 2024 or Budget 2025 measures.
