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

The Deputy raised that with me and I asked my officials to take a look at it. I have yet to hear back from them. I take the Deputy's point, however. When we have dates and limits, there will always be winners and losers. I particularly take the Deputy's point about the carers.

I am committed to a wide-ranging review of means testing in the Department. That review is ongoing and I hope to have it completed very early next year, at which point I will publish it and make it available to the committee. I prefer not to accept these amendments, if the Deputy does not mind, because, again, it is a question of putting the provisions into legislation. I promise him the committee will have the report on all these issues.

When I think about means testing, I always use the measurement that €20,000 used to buy a car but it would not buy a car now. That is the general rule for means testing. People are allowed to keep €20,000 and then the question is whether that should be changed. I always considered that sum to be the price of a car but that is no longer the case as a car costs a lot more than €20,000. We need to look at all these issues and I am committed to doing so. I was able to make some small changes. For people on a pension who want to rent a room in their house to a non-family member, for example, that income does not impact on their means-tested pension. That change is to help in providing more accommodation. People in that situation will likewise not lose their fuel allowance. We managed to ensure they keep that as well. We are trying to make improvements to make it easier for people. We are doing the full-scale review of all the benefits, after which it is a matter of implementing the new limits, whatever they may be.