Ms Catherine Cox:

I thank Deputy Donnelly. To answer his last question, we estimate that carers save our State €20 billion every year. That probably takes into account only 37 hours per week - and Ms Thyne spoke about the hours of care - so in fact it could be quite a lot more. The Deputy is right to say that carers are not going to down tools in the morning. Unfortunately, this is taken for granted.

The Deputy also asked the question around the cost of administering the carers' allowance. We put this to the Department previously, but the Department that looks after this payment also looks after other payments so it would be difficult to break down. There is no doubt, however, that there would be less cost involved if they did not have to undergo the stringent means testing that is done.

I will go back to a figure mentioned by Deputy Donnelly of €1.2 billion. Thanks to Deputy Pauline Tully we have had costings on abolishing the means test, as Professor Murphy said. The figure is actually €397 million and not the €1.2 billion the Government had predicted.