Age Action has expressed its concern about the rising levels of poverty among older people in Ireland. The Central Statistics Office Survey on Income and Living Conditions1 shows that older people, particularly those living alone, faced a growing risk of poverty in 2025.
Older people living alone had the highest rate of income poverty across all groups in 2025 at 30.3%, increasing by 4.4 percentage points from 2024, and almost 2½ times the income poverty rate nationally.
Almost one in five (18.3%) older people living alone, and one in ten (9.8%) couples with at least one person aged 65 or older, had to go without essential items because they were unable to afford them. This is called ‘enforced deprivation’. One in ten (9.8%) older people living alone were in ‘consistent poverty’ in 2025 – meaning they
suffered both income poverty and enforced deprivation.
Age Action’s Head of Advocacy and Public Affairs, Camille Loftus said:
“While one-off cost of living measures have reduced the poverty risk for older people in recent years – by 5.9 percentage points in 2025 – the failure to replace these supports with permanent and targeted measures in Budget 2026 means that older people will face a growing risk of living in poverty in 2026.”
Ends.
Contact: Camille Loftus,
Head of Advocacy and Public Affairs
086-821 7165 | camille.loftus@ageaction.ie
1 CSO, 11-Mar-26. Available at: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/psilc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2025/
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