Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Murphy raised the issue of concern for lone parents. A lone parent who is a carer - I know the Deputy is aware of this - is not, as suggested by Deputy Murphy, required to seek employment because he or she is, by virtue of being a carer, deemed to be working. In addition to the €319.80 per week payment plus €130 per month by way of child benefit, a lone parent is entitled to the household benefits package and a travel pass. The household benefits package includes a €3 per week television allowance, an estimated €2 per week free travel allowance; a €10 electricity allowance and a telephone allowance of between €5 and €6 per week. In addition, a lone parent who is a carer is entitled to a respite care grant of €1,375 per annum. In international terms - I know the Deputy is aware of this - our lone parent and carer payments are among the highest in Europe.

The lone parents with whom I have spoken say that what they would like is more certainty around the availability of respite places and other services for the child for whom they are caring. I want to make it clear that what many of the carers with whom I have spoken want, in terms of reform of the system, is more certainty in relation to respite care places. The package of payments for a carer in receipt exclusively of the carer's allowance is worth €13,350 per annum.

If the person being cared for lives with the carer and is an adult, he or she is entitled to disability payments amounting to approximately €11,000 per year. The total package, therefore, for a disabled adult being cared for by a spouse is worth €24,370 per year. Deputy Murphy and I would both like to make that payment higher, but the worst reduction in payments to such people was made by Fianna Fáil when it cut the allowance for a disabled adult being cared for by a spouse by €16 per week over the course of a number of budgets. It also took over €16 per week from carers over the course of a number of budgets. That is the cut that cut the deepest for those families comprising a lone parent caring for a child or an adult caring for a disabled person.

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