Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

In future, I will make sure we have the answers as Gaeilge for the Deputy.

We are very aware of the key role that family carers play. The main income supports to carers provided by my Department are carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the carer’s support grant, which will account for over €1.9 billion of my Department's budget in 2025. The carer’s allowance is the main scheme by which my Department provides income support to carers. There are currently 99,256 people in receipt of carer's allowance, which accounts for €1.24 billion of my Department's budget.

In common with other social welfare payments, the primary objective of the carer’s allowance payment is to provide an income support to people who experience a contingency that means that their capacity to earn an income from employment is significantly reduced. Carer’s allowance is means-tested and does not require any social insurance contributions. Means tests are used within the social welfare system to target the support to those most in need in a manner that is progressive in terms of income distribution.

The income disregards for carers are already the most generous in the social welfare system and are being further improved. This July the weekly income disregard will increase further from €450 to €625 for a single person, and from €900 to €1,250 for carers with a spouse or partner. This means that a carer in a two-adult household with an income of approximately €69,000 will still retain their full carer's payment and even with an income of €97,000 will retain a partial payment.

As the Deputy said, the programme for Government commits to continue this process. We will significantly increase the income disregards for carer’s allowance in each budget with a view to ultimately phasing out the means test during the lifetime of the Government.

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