Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In his opening statement, the Minister mentioned he expected an increase in the number of recipients of carer's allowance. I ask him to give us details on that.

Regarding the metrics, the target is to have a decision on disability allowance within 12 weeks. Only 73% of claims are being decided within 12 weeks. People can experience great hardship waiting for disability allowance. They are people who do not have contributions and are too ill to work. I know the Minister has set himself an ambitious target to make a decision on carer's allowance within one week. Obviously, as he is only achieving 15% within that target, he may have to revise that. The target for domiciliary care allowance is six weeks with only 2% success. That is something that jumps out.

The allocation for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance was down by 6%. Family income supplement increased slightly by 2%. Has there been a further uptake of family income supplement? I understand there was a PR campaign to advise people of their right to apply for family income supplement. There was some slight increase in the amount because of a slight change in the income disregard.

In the interest of efficiency, I will leave it at that.