The outlay on social security benefits rose by €32.3 million last year when compared to 2015.

The National Statistics Office said social security benefits expenditure amounted to €900.7 million by the end of last year, resulting in a 3.7 per cent increase when compared to 2015.

The rise in outlay was due to a €44 million increase in contributory benefits expenditure. Conversely, non-contributory benefits expenditure decreased by €11.7 million.

The contributory benefits outlay for 2016 amounted to €712.2 million, a 6.6 per cent increase from 2015.

The rise in outlay was mostly due to a €34.4 million increase in pensions in respect of retirement.

The main reason behind the decline was due to the one-time child supplementary benefit paid in September 2015, accounting for €7.8 million of the non-contributory outlay for that year.

Between October and December 2016, the social security benefits outlay totalled €232.2 million, a 5.4 per cent increase from the same period in 2015. Contributory Benefits expenditure increased by €12.9 million due to an €8.1 million rise in retirement pensions.

Non-contributory benefits expenditure dropped by €1.1 million following a €1.4 million decrease in the social assistance outlay.

By the end of 2016, the two-thirds pension recorded the largest number of contributory beneficiaries with 45,495 recipients. This was followed by the sickness benefit with 20,317 beneficiaries.

The same benefit registered the biggest increase from 2015 with 2,063 more beneficiaries. Conversely, the largest decrease in recipients was recorded under the unemployment benefit with 464 less recipients in comparison to 2015.

In 2016, the majority of non-contributory beneficiaries consisted of children's allowance (43,478) and supplementary allowance (24,244) recipients.

Unemployment assistance taper and in-work benefit registered the largest increases with 959 and 868 more recipients respectively.

Unemployment assistance saw the largest drop in recipients dropping from 4,816 beneficiaries at the end of 2015 to 3,597 beneficiaries by the end of last year.

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