Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I never apologise for reviews. One learns something every day as people move from one payment to another so it would be silly not to review it every day. I keep everything under constant review as we learn how things operate from dealing with people. The Deputy is wrong, although accurate, to phrase it in the way he chose. It is accurate to the extent that if one is on a carer's allowance and gets to a pensionable age, one has the option to hold on to the carer's allowance or move over to the pension. If one decides to hold on to the allowance, then it is not taken from that person, which gives the wrong impression. There is a rule in the social welfare code that states that a person gets one payment only, but we are currently working on that to see what is possible. This year I decided to give a one-off payment every June of €1,000 to everyone involved in full-time care irrespective of their means. I did this to give them a break because the all-party committee emphasised the need for people to get a break from caring.

There will be improvements in other areas and I will examine where additional payments are possible. There are many thousands of widows and hundreds of thousands of old age pensioners.

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