Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time equally with my colleague, Deputy Pádraig O’Sullivan. In the first instance I thank the Minister and the staff in her Department, as well as all the staff throughout the country for the work they have done at a very difficult period in dealing with and delivering payments to people in a fast and efficient way. While there have been glitches in the system, the staff have responded to and dealt with those glitches also.

There are two areas I wish to touch upon and to which serious consideration should be given. I have come across a number of people who have had to give up work because a member of their family has been diagnosed with a very serious illness requiring full-time care. Rather than having that person in a hospital setting or in a hospice, the family members instead kept them at home and provided full-time care. There is not an immediate response of support for someone who has given up their job in order to provide that care. That is something that should be looked at.

There have also been situations with elderly parents where the home help and support services that such people receive in normal times is not now available because of Covid-19 for various reasons, especially in rural areas, where one has a limited number of people available to provide home care. People are again having to give up jobs to look after their elderly parents and are not able to access payments. This should also be looked at.

The second issue I wish to touch on is in respect of people who are long-term carers who do not have an entitlement to a pension other than a non-contributory old age pension. I am talking about people who may have been outside of the workforce for 25 years for various reasons. They may have someone who has an intellectual disability, or may have elderly parents who they had to look after and then find when they come to the qualifying age for the old age pension, the time that they have put in as carers is not taken into account, even though providing that care has been a full-time job for them. I have seen quite a number of people who are at a serious loss because if they are living with someone who is in receipt of any kind of income, be it old age pension or whatever, the person is means tested. Long-term carers and their entitlement to an old age pension when they themselves retire is something that needs to be looked at. We must remember that there are now more than 500,000 carers dealing with different groups such as elderly people, members of people's own family such as brothers and sisters who require care or people's own children who have disabilities and to whom they are providing full-time care. I ask that the Minister give some consideration to those issues and respond to me in that regard.

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