Ms Catherine Cox:

It is something that comes up most often with former carers. Somebody who was caring will often find that their financial income goes down when they are no longer caring. We provide support programmes for former carers. That might include someone who wants to get back into the workplace. We have a working care out programme which is funded through the Dormant Accounts Fund. It supports carers who want to do a CV to show what skills they have developed over years of family caring. We also provide really good training programmes for family carers and former carers free of charge. We also provide support for employers who are employing a carer who is juggling paid work with care work. We come across the group of people mentioned by the Deputy. There is no doubt that they incur definite costs when they are going into the nursing home, sometimes twice a day. We have never thought about the idea of another payment, but it is something we can certainly think about with our policy and public affairs manager, Clare Duffy. We can look at that and see if it is something we should address because the Deputy is right when she says that there are costs involved. I suppose is so difficult to get supports for the carers who are doing it full-time that the group of carers who are doing it while juggling it with paid work often get left behind. That is not fair and it is something we can certainly consider.