Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is also clarity of thought and purpose, as Deputy Naughten said.

The Minister of State said:

The reality is that abolishing the means test would result in people who may have higher sources of income benefitting while reducing the scope for the Department to provide income supports to lower income thresholds.

He went on to say, "Officials in the Department have conservatively estimated that the cost of removing the means test for carer's allowance would be an additional €600 million per annum [a year] ... ". It is fair to say that there is no intention on the part of the Government to abolish the means test. That is fair enough. This is possibly the third motion in respect of carer's allowance that has come before the House, certainly in the past 12 months or so. There is a strong view among opposition parties in particular that we need to ensure that we keep moving forward in terms of recognising those who care for people in our society. We have countless examples of those cases, as has been articulated already, and we fight for those people every day of the week in our constituency offices. However, we want to see constant improvements to their financial position.

I acknowledge, as I have in the past, the fact that the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, as the lead Minister, has made improvements to income disregards. That has to be acknowledged. If I was short of calling for the abolition of the carer's allowance, it was because we know it that is not going to happen. If we can see improvements to income disregards for applicants as part of the trajectory the Government is on in next week's budget, it will give some confidence to people within the sector.

I want speak about one example, which I know is representative of a relatively small cohort, whereby a worker, typically male, whose female spouse is caring for somebody. That worker, who is employed by a semi-State company, may avail of overtime and move the family beyond the income thresholds and disregards. Suddenly, his spouse, who has been caring for a young adult for a long time, will lose all of the benefits that accrue by dint of the increased income. That could be looked at as part of the work of the interdepartmental working group in order to bring more of those people back into the net. It is very easy to analyse who has been lost from the system. There are carers out there who are receiving no incomes by dint of means tests and so on. If the Government could bring those people back in, it would be doing a good day's work. The Minister of State indicated that the interdepartmental group will report back to the Minister by the end of quarter 4. From he said earlier, we do not have any sense of what the thinking is or what is emerging in terms of where the Government wants to go on this.

There is an acknowledgement by the interdepartmental working group that census 2022 showed that there had been a dramatic increase in the number of carers. What we did not get from the Minister of State is a sense of how that demographic change is working its way into the work of the interdepartmental working group. We certainly do not have a sense of the Minister's thinking with regard to how we will deal with this changing demographic in the context of whether there will be a recognition of the increase in of the number of carers and the kind of schemes or financial supports which will follow from that. We could reasonably surmise that there will be an increase - perhaps in this budget - in income disregards, grants and so on. That is welcome and has been acknowledged, but we are facing a serious demographic challenge regarding the increase in the presentation of chronic illnesses, particularly Alzheimer's, which, along with other comorbidities, are resulting in the need for an increased level of care within society. We do not have a sense from the Minister of State of where the policy will go.

While we support the motion, it must be stated that there may be a case for the abolition of the means test in recognition of the massive demographic changes. The Government - any Government - is, realistically speaking, going to have to price that in the context of those demographic changes. The Minister of State said that the estimated cost of removing the means test would be €600 million. Must we now potentially price that in because of the massive demographic changes that are taking place?

The Minister of State said:

Census 2022 records approximately 290,000 self-reported carers over 19 years of age, with the total having increased by 50%, to over 299,000, from 195,000 six years previously. The carers' organisation estimates there are more than 500,000 family carers in Ireland. This is 200,000 more than the official recorded figures contained in census 2022.

To be fair, he also stated:

... there is uncertainty about how many people would meet the other conditions of the scheme, for example providing full-time and the unknown overlap between the Census and the current recipients of the carer's allowance payment.

There is a way of measuring that, however. If the Department of Health is part of the interdepartmental working group, there is a way of finding what the real-time position is in order for the mathematics and calculations to be done on that. We are facing a serious demographic crisis when it comes to caring in Ireland. We might have to, I suggest respectfully, bite the bullet and acknowledge that the abolition of the means test might have to be something that is priced in for the future.

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