Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will. I do not know where Deputy Smith is getting her figures from. Only 1% of our applications are appealed. By any standard, that is not a huge amount. The Deputy claims that huge amounts of people are refused carers. The only people who are refused carers are those who do not reach the qualifications on the carer's application form. We do not willy-nilly say we will refuse people today and have a target of ten people to refuse next week. The only people who are refused carer's allowance are those who do not produce enough evidence to show that they reach the qualifying targets. Anybody and everybody can have their application reviewed or appealed if it is refused, and can have their appeal reviewed or their appeal appealed. The process is exhaustive. Contrary to some of the commentary here, we ensure we do everything to recognise the value of care. We go over and above to make sure that we help people who have not quite reached the qualifications. We are here to help to make sure that people get what they are entitled to get. It is not a lottery of trying to refuse people so that we reach certain numbers. Everybody who applies for any scheme gets what they are entitled to. If they have not provided full information to us, then we go out of our way with reviews, appeals and appeals of appeals to give them every opportunity-----

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