Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Harkin for introducing this very important Private Members' motion. It is important that we discuss carers and the role they play in society. The level of service they give is often free of charge and is often done as a vocation rather than anything else. They do not seek a lot and we should respect the fact that they believe that this is something you do out of duty. It is important that we also ensure they can be rewarded or supported in financial terms to do that. One of the things we should change is the number of hours that somebody can work outside of the home to bring it up to 19.5 hours so that people who are on a community employment or rural social scheme can qualify for carer's allowance. At the moment it is 18 hours. It is a small change but it would make a huge difference to a lot of people who could care as well as being involved in the likes of the community employment, rural social or Tús schemes.

There is an anomaly here. In order to qualify for carer's benefit, people have to be working 18 hours a week outside the home. People who are working less than 18 hours may be on a higher income and could be getting more money and will not qualify for the carer's benefit because they are not working the 18 hours. That should be looked at to make sure that anomaly does not continue.

Deputy Harkin also raised the income disregard for a single person. It is out of sync with that of a couple. The income threshold should be €500 for a single person and €1,000 for a couple in order to give them a chance to earn some money and at the same time provide this valuable service. A lot of the service is provided at weekends when there is nobody else around. It is also provided at night and whatever else. It is important that we look at that. Without doubt, Family Carers Ireland is a good representative body for people who are caring. It is important that we as politicians listen to what carers are saying and what they need.

A number of young people were in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago. We should respect that there are a lot of young people caring within the family. They are the silent people who are doing it out of love for a family member. We need to make sure that is recognised and they are supported.

As a member of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters, it is important that I say that people with disabilities have a higher cost of living. This is nothing to do with the recent cost-of-living increases. The Indecon report stated that anybody with a disability has €12,000 of additional cost-of-living expenses per year in normal times. While we brought in some one-off payments last year, I ask that the Minister and the Department consider addressing that particular anomaly because people with disabilities need to be able to live independently and do the things they are entitled to do. I would not call them disabilities; I would say different abilities. They need that support and it is important that we do that and bring in a scheme to give them the level of support they need for the extra cost of their disability.

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