Mr. John McKeon:

-----but I think everyone was calling for them. We increased the capital on income disregards for the carer's allowance. The increase is to €450 for a single person and €900 for a couple. When I started looking at this it was approximately €500. That is now approximately €900 for a couple. It is a significant disregard. The changes for fuel allowance were made for the over-70s and so on, who are getting access to fuel allowance. There were changes for the rent-a-room disregard. I cannot remember which Deputy raised it here approximately two years ago. I think it was raised as an issue for people on the disability payment in that case, but there are also other payments where people take somebody into their house. If you are in employment you get a rent-a-room tax relief but not a rent-a-room means relief. That was brought back to the Minister, who agreed to introduce that relief. There is an ongoing process of incremental changes, often based on representations from Members of the Oireachtas. However, this year we are doing our own internal review to inform the next round of budget discussions.