the budget<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe 28-week payment now totals \u20ac1,064 during the Fuel Allowance season.<\/p>\n
However, the estimated 50,000 families expecting Fuel Allowance cash should brace themselves for a wait.<\/p>\n
Parents have been warned that they won’t qualify until January 1, with the funds not expected to hit their accounts until March or April 2026 – the funds will be backdated to January. The total sum is anticipated to exceed \u20ac304.<\/p>\n
Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance<\/p>\n
More children than ever will now be eligible for the one-off Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance following its extension in the budget. Children aged two and three are now included in the scheme, which caters for those up to the age of 22.<\/p>\n
This means-tested payment is designed to help families with the extra costs of clothing and footwear when children start school each autumn, and it opens from June 1 to September 30 each year.<\/p>\n
Whilst these payments bring welcome news to those newly qualified or already enrolled in the schemes, the Economic and Social Research Institute has cautioned that families will face hardship next year following the budget, noting that the removal of one-off boosts will have minimal effect on child poverty and lead to reduced average household income next year. This comes despite \u20ac320 million being earmarked to tackle child poverty.<\/p>\n
Speaking in the D\u00e1il last week, Sinn F\u00e9in Finance spokesman Pearse Doherty slammed the budget for benefiting those at the top with tax breaks but “royally screwed” ordinary workers.<\/p>\n
He said: “We have constant price hikes and ever increasing bills, and it means that working households, even those with two incomes, are really struggling to keep up now. They’re squeezed from all angles. It’s price hike after price hike. It’s bill after bill, and people can’t catch their breath.”<\/p>\n
T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris defended the budget during the heated D\u00e1il exchange, claiming he was being “shouted down by a bully” and asserting that the majority of the budget was directed towards improving services.<\/p>\n
The ESRI has forecast that the withdrawal of one-off supports introduced in previous budgets will cost lower-income households 4.1 per cent of their disposable income.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, families entitled to supports introduced last month have been encouraged not to miss out on available payments.<\/p>\n
Around 50,000 families will receive a lump sum exceeding \u20ac300, and more will benefit from the “largest ever increase” to the Child Support Payment, while a triple \u20ac420 Child Benefit payment will be deposited into the accounts of new parents.<\/p>\n
Others will see a \u20ac20 rise in their social welfare.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: <\/strong>Sign up here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new payment will be introduced in the coming months and will be backdated to January 2026A host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,39431],"class_list":{"0":"post-194921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-social-welfare"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115595273236177081","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_GettyImages-1479931879.jpg\")
A host of social welfare recipients are in line for the payment<\/p>\n![\"Thousands](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_GettyImages-2193584364.jpg\")
Thousands more are now eligible(Image: SOPA Images)<\/p>\n