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

I have witnessed this, as has Deputy Ó Cuív, in my constituency office. We have cases where someone who is deemed fit for work but may not be capable of doing a regular job and, at the same time, it would probably be better for that person to get work. Then the parents lose the domiciliary care allowance when the young person reaches 16 because he or she does not qualify for the disability payment. That is very difficult and I understand that.

This is currently part of the discussion on the Green Paper on the cost of disability. We are consulting on that and getting views on it to see what is the best way forward. Many parents do not want a 16-year-old to get the full payment, which is €220 a week. The parents get child benefit for the child and the child gets €220 a week at 16. There may be some way that we could transition away from this anomaly to make it better support the people who are getting it. Deputy Ó Cuív knows that these are not easy conversations. We want to see if we could do something that would be better for the families and the users themselves. It is part of the consultation on the cost of disability report.