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Nearly 13,500 people have been on Jobseekers Allowance for over five years, with nearly 5,000 on the payment for a decade or more, new figures have revealed.
It comes as the coalition is on yet another collision course over whether to increase pension rates and the social welfare rates to the same extent during Budget 2026.
John Paul O’Shea, a Fine Gael TD and Chairman of the powerful Oireachtas Social Protection Committee, stated a €12 dole rise “will not be feasible” in October’s budget as he said there is “no reason” why people should be on the payment for more than 12 months.
Last week, Tánaiste Simon Harris suggested that he was “not convinced that you need to see as significant a rise in the dole as you do on the pension, for example, at the time when our country’s in full employment and there’s lots of supports out there for people getting into work”.
However, speaking in Japan, Taoiseach Micheál Martin warned against creating distinctions and said that Fine Gael had never proposed the idea of differing increases.
This is despite senior Fine Gael sources confirming to the Irish Mirror that it was put forward by then Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys as an option.
New figures provided to the Irish Mirror by the Department of Social Protection confirmed that 46,940 people had been on Jobseeker’s Allowance for more than one year.
Some 9,809 people have been receiving the payment for between two and three years, while 5,066 people have been on Jobseekers for three to four years. Another 2,784 people have been receiving the weekly payment for four to five years.
In total, 13,391 people have been on Jobseekers for more than five years. Of these, 8,487 people have been in receipt of it for more than five years, while 4,904 have been classified as unemployed for a decade or more.
Deputy O’Shea, Fine Gael TD for Cork North-West and chair of the Oireachtas Social Protection Committee, told the Irish Mirror that “there is no reason why people should be on Jobseekers for longer than 12 months”.
When asked if he agreed with the Tánaiste’s suggestion that social protection rates and pensions did not need to be increased at the same rate as part of Budget 2026, he said, “Absolutely”.
He continued: “We obviously went and gave everyone on social welfare benefits €12 of [an] increase last year. I don’t think that is feasible this year, given the conversations we’ve had only last week in terms of trying to fund the [third level] student contribution fee as part of Government next year.
“A €1 increase [to social welfare payments] would actually pay for the whole of the entire student contribution fee that’s required.
“I don’t [know] why we should be prioritising job seekers who are on Jobseekers for over 12 months, and not to mention five years or 10 years, on the basis of the other requirements we have to fund within budget.”
At a press conference on Monday following the Government’s Competitiveness Summit, Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers declined to wade into the potential budget clash between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
He said: “[Social Protection] Minister [Dara] Calleary will obviously examine the different supports that exist in the social protection system and how best to prioritise that in the context of Budget 2026.
“One component is obviously Jobseekers. There’s Disability Allowance, Carers and obviously pension supports as well.
“It’s within that context that he’ll have to assess what the relative increases will be as part of next year’s budget.
“But it will be in a different fiscal context than we’ve seen in previous years, and that means every minister will have to prioritise the increased supports they want to see for different areas that they’re responsible for.”
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