The social narrative conspicuously characterized annual budget speeches delivered by the Minister for Finance in recent years.
Each speech spawned measures to promote social activation and participation, reduce benefit dependency and poverty and generally create a better quality of life for families with children, pensioners, persons with limited means, and others with health conditions or impairments.
But never has this narrative been as distinct as in the 2025 budget speech. It resonated with a strong package of social measures and initiatives, which in terms of count and expenditure span, are without precedent.
The measures were broadly welcomed and commended, with media commentators dubbing them generous and social to the core.
Besides copious tax cuts which will benefit a wide swathe of the population, Budget 2025 rolled out measures benefitting different classes of pensioners, the elderly, families with children, carers, persons with a disability and those with limited income. Other measures address anomalies which built up over the years.
Besides augmenting household incomes, the new benefits coupled with tax cuts are aimed at further reducing the overall at-risk-of poverty rate.
On the morrow of the Budget Speech the Permanent Secretary and his team of public officers immediately got down to map out, with the collaboration of MITA, the smooth and full implementation of the string of social measures over the year.
Officers have been assigned to monitor and regularly report, also to the office of the Principal Permanent Secretary who monitors the implementation of all Budget measures, on the progress of the backend tasks to ensure delivery on time of the improved benefits or new measures. It is a tried and tested exercise which over the past years ensured the complete delivery of announced social measures.
Overall, nearly €1.6 billion have been laid out for the provision of social benefits in 2025, with contributory and non-contributory pensioners being the biggest beneficiaries.
Overall, nearly €1.6 billion have been laid out for the provision of social benefits in 2025
Their pensions have annually been increased by €416, and where applicable stand to additionally gain from enhanced pension rates through ongoing adjustments in the structure of widowhood pensions and retirement pensions of persons born before 1962, as well as tax relief adjustments and measures aimed at service pensioners. Pensioners are further favoured by increased rates of the cost-of-living bonus, through an adjustment mechanism which on its winding up in 2027 will generate the payment of a standard annual bonus of €1,120 and its fusion into the pension.
Individuals, mostly married women, who in their working life failed to garner enough national insurance contributions to qualify for a full pension, will be awarded an improved bonus.
The payable bonus rates, now varying between €550 and €1,000, are directly pegged to the actual number of paid contributions.
Another keynote measure is the revision of the supplementary allowance payable to low- income singles or married couples.
The measure, which has already come on stream, triggered higher allowances and the widening of the eligibility thresholds specifically to embrace couples with reckonable incomes of up to €18,000.
Moreover, through a change in the eligibility criteria, recipients of the benefit, aged between 75 and 79 years, became entitled to free medical care. For the same age group, the Senior Citizens’ Grant has been increased to €350.
Families with children have once again been a focal point of the budget, with a slew of measures aimed at bolstering their incomes.
Notably, the annual child supplement has been boosted by €250 for the second year running, pushing it up to €640 or €660 per child, depending on household income.
Concurrently, through a major change, the computation of the payable rates of the Children’s Allowance will disregard not only the paid social security contributions but also the income tax incurred by a household. Through this readjustment families may benefit from higher allowance rates. Similarly, families may draw higher rates of the In-work Benefit as the same tax exemption will be applied in the calculation of the benefit.
Furthermore, besides drawing the child benefits, families welcoming a third child or more, will be paid a birth bonus which has been increased to €1,500. For the first and second child in the family the bonus is of €500 and €1,000 respectively.
Increased allowances are also being paid out to foster parents and parents of children with a disability.
Parents of children in post-secondary education get further support through the payment of a special allowance of €500 per child.
Families along with pensioners and persons with limited means are among the prime beneficiaries of the additional cost of living allowance being run for the third year running to cushion inflationary pressures on prices. Households draw their allowance in accordance with their annual incomes and the number of persons in the household. The lower the income and the more the number of dependents, the higher will the allowance be. The first of the two instalments was paid in December, with the second scheduled for mid-2025.