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

I thank the Deputy who is absolutely right. All of the carer organisations attended the pre-budget forum, which we hold in Dublin Castle every summer, and did not ask for this change in isolation. They asked for five actions, four of which were delivered by the Government in the budget.

I am not trying to discount or disregard the enormous contributions of carers, both those in receipt of carer's allowance and the thousands who are not. We sometimes put numbers on these things and say they are saving us billions of euro and so on, but we cannot put a number on the value and investment carers contribute to the common good of society. That is why we should not tinker around the edges when it comes to these decisions. Increasing the disregard would have cost €70 million, but would only have impacted 0.1% of the people currently in receipt of payments. Our ambition in this budget was to look after the people who are most financially vulnerable. In that context, it would not have been wise of me to increase the disregard. We need to have a collective conversation, both as parliamentarians and as a society, about caring for our carers in future. We must decide how society will acknowledge and appreciate the enormous contribution they make to the common good of Ireland.

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