The Department of Social Protection has announced changes to its phone numbers for all welfare services.
ComReg changes announced late last year have led to all 1890 numbers being replaced with 0818.
A call will cost no more than a normal call to a landline from any phone, and if your mobile plan includes free calls to landlines, you won't be charged anything extra.
Every social welfare department is now using an 0818 number including the likes of Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance Section, Child Benefit and school meals section, to name but a few.
The entire list of new contact numbers can be found here.
This is just the latest change that social welfare claimants will have to get used to.
On December 30, Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys, announced that future Jobseekers Allowance Payments could be tied to the claimants' wage before becoming unemployed.
"I’m going to be looking now in the new year to move the unemployment payments back to the post offices because in fairness, the post office was the place where people collected their money before the pandemic, and that was always the case," Minister Humphreys said.
"What we have at the minute with the PUP is five different bands and I think that we can learn from that," Minister Humphreys told the Irish Independent.
"Obviously, we were still in the middle of this pandemic but it’s something I want to bring forward and I’d like to look at proposals."
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