Poverty rates significantly higher among those with long-standing health problems, survey finds

Poverty rates were higher among people with long-standing health problems last year, according to a survey conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

People who reported being severely limited in usual activities, often due to a health problem, were three times as likely to not be able to afford to keep their home warm in 2025. This was 11.5% of respondents, with 3.2% of those reporting that they were not limited.

Four in ten respondents with a severely limited household member had said that housing costs were an extreme financial burden, when compared with just 20.9% where no household member was limited.

Respondents who reported a bad or very bad general health, 7.7% reported feeling lonely all the time, compared with 0.2% of those whole reported having very good health.

The CSO say that the risk of poverty rate for people with long-standing severe activity limitation due to a health problem was 20.8%, compared with 9.8% of those who were not limited.

Cian Martin, Statistician in the Income, Consumption and Wealth Division, said: “Today’s results from the CSO’s SILC 2025 show that poverty rates and rates of enforced deprivation are higher and self-perceived well-being is lower in respondents with poorer health. In SILC, the identification of people living in enforced deprivation is currently achieved based on a set of 11 basic deprivation indicators.

“People severely limited for at least six months in usual activities because of a health problem had higher deprivation rates across all 11 SILC deprivation indicators compared with those ‘not limited’. For example, 14.1% of those ‘severely limited’ went without heating at some stage in the last year compared with 5.2% of people who were ‘not limited’.

“In 2025, 19% of those ‘severely limited’ could not afford new (not second-hand) clothes compared with 4.9% of those ‘not limited’. A fifth (19.4%) of ‘severely limited’ people were unable to afford to get together once a month with family or friends for a drink or a meal, compared with 7.1% of those ‘not limited’.

“The enforced deprivation rate, the percentage of households that cannot afford two or more of the 11 deprivation items, stood at 14% in 2025 for those aged 16 and over. This rate varied substantially by health status. The enforced deprivation rate for those reporting ‘very bad’ general health was over four times higher than the rate for those with ‘very good’ health (33% and 8.2% respectively).

"The enforced deprivation rate was 21.8% for those with a self-reported chronic illness, twice as high as that of those without a chronic illness (10.8%). Among people who described themselves as ‘severely limited’ in usual activities, more than one in three (34.3%) were living in enforced deprivation, compared with 23.4% of people who described themselves as ‘limited but not severely’, and 10.9% of those ‘not limited’."