Ms Clare Duffy:

As well as the terms and conditions, much of this area is tied in to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, whether it realises it or not. We have met representatives of the Department in recent years. We met them when unemployment was at 10% because we could not encourage people to come off the live register and take up caring roles and we wanted to be creative and see what we could do. The Department pointed to four pre-existing schemes, such as the part-time jobs incentive scheme, that they felt should address the issue but they simply did not. The Department, which now has the employment portfolio, should be thinking in this space and need to get much more creative. For example, carers in receipt of carer's allowance are allowed 15 hours a week. Seven or eight years ago income earned during the 15 hours as a home care worker was exempt from the means test for carer's allowance as an incentive to encourage people to work as home care workers. I am not advocating that specifically but it was a sign of an eagerness of support. We have 80,000 carers who receive carer's allowance.

They are allowed to work 15 hours. Most of them would like to work in a paid capacity, in paid care work, and we should be looking at how we can incentivise them. This would address the likes of the pension issue and the financial issues they face. It would also help them to stay engaged with the labour market while they are caring. I therefore agree completely that we must look towards the Department of social protection, which now has that employment element of the portfolio as well.