Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister about the need for a conversation because the number of carers will increase significantly over the next ten, 15 or 20 years. However, her reply is a little disingenuous. She has agreed to increase the number of hours from 15 to 18.5 per week, but she says that increasing the disregard would cost €117 for a single person and double that for a couple, at a net cost of €55 million. It is not necessary to increase the disregard by that much to compensate people for working an additional three and a half hours a week. The people who would earn €117 in three and a half hours are earning more than €80,000 a year or even double that. Compensating for the additional hours would cost far less than that.

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