Social Justice Ireland have called on the Government to increase weekly welfare rates by €25 in Budget 2024.

Without the social welfare system, just over one-third of the Irish population would have been living in poverty last year, according to the group.

The organisation urged the Government to commit to benchmarking social welfare rates to average weekly earnings "if it is to have any impact on reducing poverty and meeting its own targets".

The key findings from Social Justice Ireland’s policy brief ‘Social Welfare Rates Budget 2024: the case for benchmarking and indexation’ stresses that core social welfare rates should be benchmarked at 27.5% of average weekly earnings.

Social Justice Ireland Research and Policy Analyst, Susanne Rogers, remarked, that the amount offered in last year's Budget was insufficient

Adequate levels of social welfare are essential to addressing poverty. We are calling on Government to increase core social welfare rates by €25 in #Budget2024 more at https://t.co/Y5oD7RwVtS

— Social Justice Ireland (@SocialJusticeI) May 29, 2023

"Adequate levels of social welfare are essential to addressing poverty," a statement from Social Justice Ireland reads. "Income adequacy cannot be addressed by one-off measures. Budget 2023 failed to deliver for vulnerable and low-income households as the necessary increase to the minimum social welfare payment was not made. A repetition of this mistake would mean Government yet again fails those on low incomes."

"Social welfare payments play a crucial role in reducing poverty," the statement adds. "Without the social welfare system just over one-third of the Irish population (36.7 per cent) would have been living in poverty in 2022. Such an underlying poverty rate suggests a deeply unequal distribution of direct income. In 2022, the actual poverty figure of 13.1 per cent reflects the fact that social welfare payments reduced poverty by almost 24 percentage points."

By benchmarking social welfare rates to 27.5 per cent of average weekly earnings in Budget 2024, it would be used as "the starting point in the development of a pathway to index core social welfare rates to the Minimum Essential Budget Standard over time".

‘Social Welfare Rates Budget 2024: the case for benchmarking and indexation’ – key recommendations:

• A commitment from Government to benchmark core social welfare rates to 27.5 per cent of average weekly earnings in Budget 2024
• An increase of €25 in all core social welfare rates in Budget 2024;
• Commitment to use this benchmark as the starting point in the development of a pathway to index core social welfare rates to the Minimum Essential Budget Standard over time.