Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senator. She is always good at getting value for her buck.

The Senator raised seven issues. I welcome her remarks on carer's allowance. On the disregards from July on, a carer in a two-adult household with an income of approximately €69,000 will retain the maximum figure. That €69,000 figure was €37,000 in June 2022. A carer with an income of €97,000 will retain a partial payment. That €97,000 was €60,000 in June 2022. That gives a sense of the direction in which the Government is determined to go. I intend to continue the previous Minister's work in that space.

I totally hear the Senator regarding illness benefit and the widow's pension, but I point out, and this is important, that if a person is getting a reduced rate of a widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner payment, they can also get a reduced rate of illness benefit. The challenge is to make sure the combined amount of both payments is not greater than the maximum rate of illness benefit that person would be entitled to. That is because there is a one person one payment rule within the Department. We are confined within that space. I am happy to engage with the committee in this regard. It is certainly an issue. Without highlighting it, the Senator's case is one example that is typical of many. The last thing I want the Department to do is to add to somebody's troubles and challenges at a time of grief.

Auto-enrolment, AE, is being run from Letterkenny by a company, Talon Consulting, which employs more than 1,000 people there. They are providing a lot of the expertise in the background. We advertised for the CEO of NAERSA only a few weeks ago. That was late but we are trying to get all this done. I am not aware of any second round of ads. We will of course promote a job such as this far and wide. I am confident that we will fill it. From July on, public ads will go out to tell people all about my future fund. We signed off on a budget and ads in order that people can understand and get familiar with the fact my future fund is coming and will start from 1 January 2026. We are increasing the awareness of it. We have also advertised for board members for NAERSA. As of now, I am very confident that everything is on schedule. We postponed the date from September to January because we had consultations with payroll providers, who made the very fair point that they would be making changes in November anyway as a consequence of whatever budgetary changes come in. It was not right to ask for two changes to be made, and the expense of that, in the context of a September roll-out of AE and budgetary changes in November. It is far more efficient to go with 1 January.

On the wage subsidy scheme, I am totally committed to the ability programmes. They are brilliant. Well done to the Senator on her work in that. These programmes are beginning to gather steam throughout the country. The teams working in them are excellent. I ask any employer who is thinking in this space to engage with us and throw all their questions at us. We have grants for some employers for adaption of workplaces. If they have questions, we can answer them confidentially. A number of examples are available throughout the system. I do not want to highlight any particular case, but companies such as Mr Price, Musgrave Group and Velo Coffee Roasters are involved. People from Murphy's Furniture in Wexford were in with us. These are all in retail and in different kinds of spaces. We have a lot more to do, as the civil and public service, to promote people and give people with disabilities an opportunity, as do political parties. I made the point to my own party management that we need to be out there. I am not saying parties will qualify for WSS - we will not - but we all need to buy into this space. I will encourage all Oireachtas Members, as representatives, to point this out to employers and point out the supports that are there, including the financial supports but, more importantly, the supports that are there to assist them in going on this journey.

On carer's appeals, I asked the appeals team to focus on appeal processing times. We made some changes to appeals in respect of online appeals, etc., that have added to it.

In 2024, the appeals office received 36,530 appeals and it processed 28,000. A total of 3.4 million decisions were taken by the Department of Social Protection in 2024. Some 5%, or 173,000, of these were appealed. We are working through the appeals. If there are specific emergency appeals, then the Department is more than happy to engage with them. We have appointed extra appeals officers. We have also implemented a new IT system. In December and January , the previous Minister, Heather Humphreys, ensured that 20 additional staff were assigned to the appeals unit. They have been trained up and are working their way through the appeals.

I focused in particular on the DCA. The final figure is that 21,600 appeals were on hand at the end of December 2024 and, as of 30 May, which is the most recent information we have, 17,949 appeals remain. We are working through them. I am happy that the resources are in place. I thank the appeals team, which has thrown everything at this in the past while.

We will look at fuel allowance thresholds in the context of the budget. We also have a means review under way currently across all schemes in the Department. That will address other schemes that were raised earlier as well.