Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If I could invite carers into the group, caring for the elderly, for example, tends to be time-limited. I am probably the oldest person in the room but when you reach a certain age you see your friends die.

Caring for a child born with a significant disability is a totally different situation. In my experience, in many of those cases, that is where we tend to come up against the issue of income. Many of these people have had good careers, in many cases. They are people getting on with their lives, paying a big mortgage. Suddenly they are confronted with this new challenge in their lives. Most of those people have a work record at this stage, but not all of them, of course. Therefore, qualifying on the benefit grounds rather than the means grounds is an easier way to go, certainly in the short term, if you extend it to five years.

As I said, that is only step one. We have been doing this incrementally. We have gone from €375 up to €450. That does not look so good but when it is doubled, it is a different story. In fairness to the Minister, she has given this priority over other things.