Social welfare spending has been prioritised in this Budget. Next year, total funding for the Department of Social and Family Affairs will be €19.6 billion. This represents an increase of €2.6 billion or 15.5% over the Estimates allocation for 2008. Over 1.7 million people and their dependents will benefit from this expenditure.
Unfortunately, it has been necessary to take some steps to reduce expenditure but these have been kept to the absolute minimum and applied in a careful manner. Where possible, associated measures will also be implemented to alleviate the impact on persons affected by the measures, especially social welfare dependent families. Most of the proposed measures relate to changes in the eligibility criteria for social insurance based schemes and, in these cases, the most vulnerable people will normally be entitled to a means tested social assistance payment instead.
It should also be noted that the Estimates published on Budget day provide for significant savings next year in various areas of the Department's administrative expenditure including travel and subsistence, postage, consultancy services and advertising.