Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

We are discussing funding for carers and I want to talk about one funding source, namely, the domiciliary care allowance. The domiciliary care allowance is payable in respect of a child under the age of 16 who has severe disability requiring continual care and attention. Over the past number of years I have noticed a pattern of people contacting me and coming to my office with the same problem with the domiciliary care allowance. A very high percentage of applicants seem to be turned down on their very first application only to get it on appeal. I submitted parliamentary questions to try to get to the bottom of this and see what information I could get back. I was informed that 33% of all first-time applications for the domiciliary care allowance were refused. Of this, 50% of the applicants appealed it. Out of the 2,146 appeals, only 823 were not successful. I will be honest with the Minister of State. I will recommend to any parent out there who has been turned down for the domiciliary care allowance to appeal because based on these figures, it is likely they will win. As one parent said to me, "You would think the Government wants us to go away after we are turned down the first time." Looking at these figures, I have to agree with parents when they come to me like that.

Another issue is the abolition of the means test for carers. That was one of the pre-election promises by Government. It is six months since that election and we have not seen any movement on that. We have to see movement on that; we cannot have another broken promise. We have to see carers recognised. We have to see the means test abolished and the Government parties have to stick to their pre-election promises because the people of Ireland simply will not forgive them if that is one of the promises the Government rolls back on.

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