Welfare Recipients
Quarterly counts of welfare scheme recipients in Ireland by programme group, scheme, and nationality category. Headline figures reflect end-of-year (Q4) snapshots to enable year-on-year comparison; the time-series chart below uses all four quarters for granular detail. Source: Department of Social Protection via data.gov.ie (CC-BY 4.0).
How to read these figures
Q4 snapshots. Stat cards and headline figures show the latest Q4 of each year. This gives a clean year-over-year picture (Q4 2024 vs Q4 2023). The time-series chart below shows all four quarters per year for finer-grained detail.
Recipient-instances, not unique people. Recipients are counted per scheme per quarter. A single person may receive multiple schemes simultaneously (e.g. State Pension and Household Benefits, or Child Benefit and Working Family Payment), so totals reflect recipient-instances rather than unique people.
Raw counts only. Comparisons between nationality categories show raw counts. Population denominators are not currently included, so these numbers cannot be used to compare rates of welfare receipt across groups.
Filters
Recipients per quarter
Total welfare recipients per quarter, 2014 to 2024. Pandemic-era spike (2020 Q2) and recovery clearly visible.
Nationality share of recipients
Share of total welfare recipients per nationality, quarterly 2014 to 2024. Bands always sum to 100%, so this shows how the demographic mix has shifted rather than absolute totals.