One in Seven Irish Adults Now Receive Financial Help From Family

News analysis · 30 September 2026. The figures below come from a survey of 1,000 adults nationwide conducted by iReach for Royal London Ireland. They measure self-reported financial support and should not be read as administrative data for every Irish household.

Family money is becoming a routine part of household finances for a significant share of adults in Ireland.

New research from Royal London Ireland finds that around 15% of adults — roughly one in seven — are currently receiving financial support from family.

Among people in their mid-30s to mid-40s, the proportion rises to roughly one in four.

That is striking because this is not only a story about students or people in their early twenties.

The survey suggests family financial support is continuing well into the years when many people are juggling mortgages or rent, childcare, insurance, groceries and attempts to save for the future.

And for many recipients, the money is not being used for luxuries.

Almost half are using it to cover everyday essentials.

What the survey found

The Royal London Ireland research, reported by Business Plus and IFSC.ie on 30 September, surveyed 1,000 adults nationwide.

Among the main findings:

• around 15% of adults receive financial support from family;
• published coverage reports the figure at about 24% among adults aged 34–44;
• women are slightly more likely than men to receive support, at 17% versus 14%;
• 53% of people with adult children or grandchildren say they are financially supporting them;
• adults in the rest of Leinster were most likely to report receiving family help, at 20%, followed by Dublin at 17%;
• the equivalent figure in Connacht was 9%.

The survey also asked people receiving family support what the money was being used for.

The most common answer was ordinary household spending.

The clearest message is that family help is not confined to occasional large gifts.

For many households, it is helping fund the ordinary cost of living.

Why are people in their 30s and 40s still relying on family?

There is no single explanation, and a survey like this cannot prove what caused each household to seek support.

But the financial pressures facing adults in this age range are unusually concentrated.

For many households, the 30s and 40s can combine:

• a mortgage or high rent;
• childcare costs;
• rising grocery and utility bills;
• insurance;
• commuting and car costs;
• pension contributions;
• saving for a home or a larger home;
• and, in some cases, supporting children while also beginning to help older relatives.

Royal London Ireland’s other 2026 research points in the same direction.

In June, it reported that one in five adults said they could maintain their standard of living for less than one month if their regular income stopped. Adults aged 35–44 were among the most exposed groups.

A separate May survey found that 70% of adults said the rising cost of living was their biggest financial worry.

Taken together, the surveys suggest that family support is functioning as an informal financial buffer for some households.

Housing is a major part of the story

Family help is also playing a role in home ownership.

Among recipients aged 25–34, 33% said family support was being used towards a home deposit. Among recipients aged 35–44, the figure was 29%.

The housing backdrop helps explain why.

The latest Central Statistics Office Residential Property Price Index shows that the median price of a dwelling purchased in Ireland in the 12 months to July 2026 was €399,999.

In Dublin, the median was €500,000.

National residential property prices were 27.5% above the previous property-boom peak.

For a first-time buyer trying to assemble a 10% deposit, a €400,000 home implies a deposit of roughly €40,000 before legal fees, stamp duty and the other costs of buying.

That makes family assistance potentially decisive for some buyers.

Use Compound’s House Deposit Calculator to model how long it could take to build a deposit from regular monthly savings.

But family help can raise a tax question

For small, occasional amounts used for groceries or bills, tax may never become an issue.

For larger transfers — particularly deposits, investments or repeated cash gifts — families should understand Ireland’s Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT) rules.

The first €3,000 received from any one person in a calendar year can qualify for the Small Gift Exemption.

That means, for example, two parents can each give an adult child €3,000 in the same calendar year — €6,000 in total — without using the child’s Group A CAT threshold, assuming the gifts otherwise qualify.

Amounts above the annual exemption can begin to use the recipient’s lifetime group threshold.

For an ordinary parent-to-child gift, the current Group A threshold is €400,000.

Importantly, that threshold is cumulative across relevant taxable gifts and inheritances in the same group, rather than resetting for every transfer.

You can model a larger family gift using Compound’s Inheritance & Gift Tax Calculator and read our full guide to inheritance tax and CAT in Ireland.

Does money for day-to-day support automatically avoid CAT?

No.

Revenue does provide a specific CAT exemption for certain payments used for support, maintenance or education, but it is not a blanket exemption for financially helping any adult relative.

The exemption can apply, subject to Revenue’s conditions, where support is provided to:

• a child under 18;
• a child aged 18 to 25 who is in full-time education;
• a child who is unable to maintain themselves because of a permanent physical or mental disability;
• certain people for whom the giver stands in place of a parent;
• or certain dependent relatives.

The payment must also be part of the giver’s normal expenditure and reasonable relative to their financial circumstances.

So a parent transferring money every month to a financially independent 38-year-old to help with groceries should not simply assume the support-and-maintenance exemption applies.

For larger or repeated transfers, keeping records matters.

The other side of the equation: parents are giving too

One of the most revealing findings is that 53% of respondents with adult children or grandchildren said they were providing financial assistance.

That makes this a two-generation financial issue.

Parents and grandparents may be helping younger relatives with deposits, childcare, bills or emergencies, but that support is coming from their own savings, income and retirement resources.

That creates an important trade-off.

Helping an adult child today may make sense for a family, but not if it leaves the giver without:

• an adequate emergency fund;
• sufficient retirement income;
• money for future healthcare;
• or the ability to absorb their own unexpected costs.

Family support works best when it is planned rather than improvised.

A useful way to structure family financial help

If a parent or grandparent wants to provide support, it helps to distinguish between four very different things:

1. Routine help with bills

Small transfers for groceries, childcare or utilities may solve an immediate problem, but repeated support can also hide a household budget that is structurally short each month.

The recipient should still understand the underlying gap between income and essential spending.

2. An emergency payment

A once-off transfer after redundancy, illness or an unexpected bill is different from ongoing support.

It can act as a family emergency fund while the recipient rebuilds their own cash buffer.

3. A house-deposit gift

This is usually a much larger transfer and should be considered alongside CAT, lender requirements and the giver’s own finances.

If the transfer is genuinely a gift, families should document it clearly rather than leaving uncertainty over whether it is a loan.

4. Long-term wealth transfers

Regular annual gifts can be part of deliberate intergenerational planning.

Our guide to saving for your child in Ireland explains how ownership, tax and the timing of gifts can affect the eventual handover.

The worrying part is not that families help each other

Family financial support is not inherently a problem.

Parents have always helped children, adult children help parents, and grandparents often contribute to major milestones.

The more important question is what the money is being used for.

If support helps someone buy their first home or deal with a temporary setback, it can materially improve their long-term position.

If it is required indefinitely to pay for groceries, childcare, insurance and utilities, it points to much weaker financial resilience.

That distinction is visible in the new survey.

Almost half of recipients are using family money for routine expenses, while three in ten say it is helping them simply stay afloat.

That suggests the “Bank of Mum and Dad” is no longer only about house deposits.

For some Irish adults, it has become part of the monthly household budget.

What to take from the numbers

The new survey does not mean one in seven adults is financially dependent on relatives in exactly the same way.

A person receiving €50 occasionally and someone receiving €1,000 every month are both counted as receiving support.

But the broader pattern is still significant.

A meaningful share of adults are relying on intergenerational transfers at the same time as housing costs remain high and many households report limited financial buffers.

For recipients, the long-term goal should be to use family help to improve resilience where possible rather than simply replacing an ongoing monthly shortfall.

For parents and grandparents, support should be balanced against their own retirement and emergency needs — and larger transfers should be considered alongside Ireland’s gift-tax rules.

The family safety net is clearly doing a lot of work in Ireland.

The question is how many households would cope without it.