Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Farrell should relax for a minute. I welcome the opportunity to talk about this on behalf of constituents who experience particular hardships, when they find the system either slow to respond or not responding to their circumstances.

I will refer to the additional needs payment. While I appreciate the Department has taken some action to address the limited timeframe involved, many people are still faced with unacceptable delays. The many constituents who have contacted me about this have invariably said they have been waiting five or six weeks. It is not unheard of for people to wait between six and eight weeks and that remains a problem. While I understand that community welfare officers are under an increased amount of pressure, more needs to be done to assist them and the people they are trying to help. If a family has an immediate need, for example, if their washing machine, boiler or other appliance breaks down, they cannot wait for a month, let alone two months. Additional needs payments are, therefore, emergencies, which by their very nature need a swift response. I urge the Minister to identify the resources that are needed and to respond accordingly. Too many people find themselves left in limbo facing bills and awake at night thinking about how they can buy more time before they pay those bills.

The qualifying criteria for carer's allowance is another issue that must be addressed. Many people are putting their lives on hold to look after a loved one or a neighbour and the time and work involved does not allow them to get on with their lives as they otherwise would. However, time and again, people who are genuinely carers are being refused the carer's allowance. This causes undue hardship for those people but also poses uncertainty for people being cared for, as they cannot be sure whether their current unpaid carers will be able to stick with them. Carers were the unsung heroes of the pandemic. They are also the unsung heroes of any day of the week. Whether the Department considers them carers or not, the fact remains too many people are working day in and day out with no recognition, only to be told the State will not recognise them for the work they do. I urge the Minister to review the criteria that will leave a carer worthy of some small payment and to address this shortcoming.

We also need to see some reform of disability-related supports. Current means testing results in some people losing or having adjustments made to their blind pension or disability allowance because of a change in the income of their partners. We are not calling for the removal of means testing altogether but we need to see it applied in a fairer way that takes account of the challenges faced by the applicant. The higher daily cost of having a disability is also not given proper consideration. The Government has spoken about addressing this within the social welfare system yet nothing has been done. If we are to recognise the imbalance that exists properly, the Government needs to act urgently and address the inequality that continues to exist.

See this speech in context