Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this important issue. I thank the Senators for their contributions and for bringing forward the motion.

This is a timely discussion. I will host my Department's pre-budget forum next week when I will sit down with all the advocacy groups, including those representing carers.

The Government is aware of the valuable work being carried out by family carers across the country. As a result, we have taken extensive measures to support carers over recent years. The main income supports provided by my Department include carer's allowance, carer's benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the carer's support grant. Spending on these payments in 2023 is expected to be in the region of €1.6 billion. Total expenditure on carer's payments has increased by over 50% since 2015. The number of people in receipt of carer’s allowance has almost doubled, from 50,000 in 2010 to almost 94,000 today.

As Senators will be aware, carer’s allowance is a means-tested payment awarded to those who are caring for people who need full-time care and attention. I regularly meet carers in my constituency office and I fully recognise the vital work they do because caring is a tough job. For those people who step up to care for a loved one, whether it is a mother or father in old age or a son or daughter, it is not easy.

I thank Senator Ardagh for sharing with us her story about her son. It was not easy for the Senator to stand up and tell that story. I also thank Senator Paddy Burke for sharing the story of his late mother. I am aware that one of the Senator's priorities was to keep his mother living at home. The work the carers provided, coupled with the support of the family at the time, was essentially in enabling the family to do that. Caring can take its toll on people's physical and mental health and on family life also.

I value the work of our family carers and since my appointment as Minister for Social Protection, enhancing the supports available for carers has been a priority for me. I welcome all the carers and members of the representative organisation who are in the Gallery.

In budget 2021, my first budget in the Department, I increased the carer’s support grant to €1,850, its highest ever level. In budget 2022, I was the first Minister in 14 year to make improvements to the carer's allowance means test to enable more people to qualify for the payment. I increased the income limit for a couple to €750 and for a single person to €350. In addition, I increased the amount of savings disregarded in the carer’s means test from €20,000 to €50,000. The aim of increasing the general weekly income disregard for a couple by slightly more than that for a single person was to ensure that carers would not be unfairly impacted by their partner’s income. These are the highest income disregards in the social welfare system. They mean that, in the case of a couple, earnings of up to €41,500 per annum are disregarded.

Last year, in my third budget in the Department, I increased the weekly carer’s payments by €12, which was the largest increase in the payment since the mid-2000s. I also put in place a range of lump-sum payments to support carers, including a double payment in October, a €500 lump-sum payment for carers in November and a further double payment at Christmas. In addition, carers also received the €200 spring lump-sum payment made in April. The value of those four lump-sum payments in the six months between the end of October 2022 and April 2023 is close to €1,200 and is a significant intervention to support our carers with the cost of living.

I am not opposing the Labour Party motion. I have looked through the various asks, including that I increase the carer’s support grant to €2,000, increase the weekly carer's payment by €25 and increase the means limit to €1,000 for a couple and €500 for a single person. I will be very honest. I would love to do all of those things but the issue for me is when it comes to budget time there will be a limited pot of money available and I will have to plan on the basis of how we can ensure maximum benefits for vulnerable groups across the social protection system, whether carers, pensioners, people with disabilities, lone parents or others.

I will touch on a few wider issues raised in the motion. It is important to understand that the job of the social welfare system is to provide people with a basic level of income.If we are to pay carers properly for the huge work they do, the Department of Health has a role here. The reality is that if families' carers were not doing the work, a lot of these people would be in State care. No matter where I draw the line in terms of the means test, there will always be some people who will fall down the other side and will not qualify. The person I always think of is the mother who has to give up her job to care for a severely disabled child. Then, because her husband works, she will not qualify for payment.

I know some of the carers' groups would like to see the means test abolished altogether, but if you go down that road, it will no longer be a social welfare payment. In cases where somebody has to give up their job to care for a person with high dependency who would otherwise be in State care, it is absolutely reasonable that the Department of Health or the HSE would provide a payment once the medical need is satisfied.

I want to speak briefly on the domiciliary care allowance payment, which the motion also touches on. There are currently 51,978 families in receipt of this payment in respect of 58,213 children. This represents an increase of almost 27% in families and of 30% in children in the past five years. In acknowledging the financial burden that the families of sick children face, I have made significant changes to the domiciliary care allowance payment over the last two years. The period during which domiciliary care allowance can be paid for children in hospital was extended from three months to six months. With effect from January, domiciliary care allowance is available for babies who remain in an acute hospital after birth for a period of six months. During both of these extended periods of eligibility and where other conditions are met, a carer may also receive carers' allowance or carers' benefit and the carers' support grant. The monthly payment was increased by €21 to its current rate of €330, which was the first increase to the monthly payment in more than a decade. I note the motion calls for the domiciliary care allowance payment to be raised to the age of 18.

My Department has committed under the roadmap for social inclusion to develop and consult on a strawman proposal for the restructuring of long-term disability payments. The strawman also intends to simplify the system and take account of the issues raised in the context of the Make Work Pay report, the Pathways to Work report and the findings of the Cost of Disability in Ireland report. Work on the strawman is at an advanced stage and I expect to bring it forward for publication shortly. I intend to carry out a wider consultation process on reforms to long-term disability payments, including domiciliary care allowance, with all stakeholders and advocacy groups following publication.

In relation to the pension for carers, and in acknowledging the important role that family carers play in society and supporting carers in that role, I am committed to providing a pension for carers. I announced a series of landmark reforms to the State pension system in September. These measures are in response to recommendations by the Commission on Pensions and represent the biggest ever structural reform of the Irish State pension system. One of the most important reforms agreed by the Government is an enhanced State pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependents for more than 20 years. We will do this by attributing the equivalent of paid contributions to long-term carers to cover gaps in their social insurance contribution record and by establishing a register of family carers for this purpose. My officials are currently working to implement the reforms, including the drafting of legislation and the development of administrative and IT systems for implementation by January 2024.

A number of other issues were raised with me here. Regarding young carers, who I know make huge sacrifices, we provide €980 in funding under the Dormant Accounts Fund. Some of the issues that have been raised this afternoon are outside of the remit of the Department of Social Protection, but I will raise them with the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, who has responsibility in that area. The programme for Government commits to delivering a carers' guarantee to provide a core basket of services to carers across the country, regardless of where they live. New funding of €2 million was provided in the budget of 2021 under the national carers' strategy. Some €1.9 million of this funding is being channelled through Family Carers Ireland, while the remaining €100,000 is supporting the development and delivery of online supports. The Department of Health met with Family Carers Ireland on 6 July and undertook to consider the carers' guarantee request for additional funding of €3.1 million.

Also, reference was made to the referendum. On 8 March, the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, announced that a referendum will be held to amend the Constitution as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality and the special Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality. An interdepartmental committee chaired by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth was then established to further examine and advance these recommendations. The interdepartmental committee is now working on policy proposals which will be brought forward for consideration and decision by the Government shortly. We will be in a position to update further at that stage.

I want to thank Senators again for raising this matter. We have done a lot to improve supports for carers within the social welfare system. I can assure them that carers will be a priority for me again in this year's budget.