Mr. John Dunne:

If the Chairman does not mind, I will keep a little bit of focus on the long-term bit. I am not taking away from the need for action in this year’s budget. I like the idea of taking the foster carer approach and applying it to all carers. It is not a social welfare scheme. It is operated and paid by Tusla. It is certainly a plausible way to go and quite a practical one. However, it would require a step outside the current box of thinking and that is why I am bidding for that. I would also say that it applies to carers of children. The question then would be around it applying to all carers. I do not see a reason why it should not apply to all carers, but the foster carer one applies to carers of children. Once they become adults, the scheme changes.

The 18.5 hour rules were mentioned. I want to acknowledge here that after several, if not ten or more years, we got up to 18.5. Frankly, I think the Department is genuinely worried about going any higher because of, again, the implications with the EU of appearing to undermine the rationale or justification of the scheme in European terms. Where that is so immediate of a concern is not actually around lifetime carers, many of whom have limited ability to go out and work anyhow, but looking at one group, we have focused on young carers who are making the transition from secondary school to college. They are involved in a substantial caring role at home. Effectively, to go to college, they would have to travel. In partnership with third level institutions, we developed distance learning programmes that were specifically designed to ensure that young carers would not have to spend more than 18.5 hours in class contact time, meaning contact time on campus. However, actually, the way the scheme is interpreted at the minute, all of the work that they do in their home is not appropriately accounted for. For example, if they decide to do coursework instead of watching television, that coursework counts against the qualification as they are becoming adult carers. There just seems to be something pretty egregious about that to me. That is to explain about the 18.5 hours position.

On the State pension, it was already said. We are hopeful that there will be a positive announcement. The delay is probably in respect of issues that do not relate to the carer element of that.