Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I agree with the Deputy. In our preparation for responding to his question, I have asked that we do more work in terms of reaching out to people who may qualify but who may not know. Those figures strike me as low. The Department has been doing a lot of work in this space in terms of trying to bring the scheme to people's attention. Maybe with the support of colleagues across the House, we can do that by way of newsletters and so on. We will be doing more work this year to draw people's attention. Many carers may not realise that they can now qualify for a contributory pension or may not have had the chance to actually see that they do. We will be proactive in trying to bring people's attention to it.

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