Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not comfortable with the phrase the Minister used about this being the most generous income disregard. It is but there is good reason for that. The reality is that every person, particularly an older person, who is kept out of a nursing home saves the taxpayer between €600 and €800 every week. If it is a child or adult with a profound disability, the savings are multiples of that on a weekly basis. If the income disregard was increased in line with the increases in the minimum wage between 2008 and today the income disregard for a single person would be €388 and the income disregard for a couple would be €776.50. Even keeping in line with the minimum wage this is falling well short of where it should be.

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