Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and I thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing me this space as I am not a member of this committee. I am on the Joint Committee on Disability Matters and we hear about disability, carer's allowance and how it is designed and as was articulated, quite often it is seen as a punishment and penalty on many families and that the practicality of caring is ignored or not looked at. Ms Skelly spoke about forcing people into poverty and the insult to injury and when we are speaking about caring for a family member and support from the State, those type of terms are not the ones we should use. It should be "We support you", "We understand you" and "We appreciate you" and carers should feel appreciated for that care.

I have a question for Ms Cox. Are there similar payments in other countries or is there a best practice that we should consider? Regarding participation income, the report mentioned assessment criteria. Could she elaborate on what that assessment criteria would be as opposed to means-testing? We all see that means-testing is harsh and there is a cut-off point. If means-testing is incorporated with the ancillary benefits, how does that compare to the participation income? Were we to change means-testing with increased thresholds and the extra supports that are around such that if a person is in receipt of X, he or she would get extra, how would that compare?