Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I thank the members of the Independent Technical Group for bringing forward this very important motion. The first motion I brought to this House along with my party regarded young carers, so it is positive to see Members continuing to highlight the issues impacting family carers. During the general election, disability and care were central policy areas. I am glad to see that it continues to be a main policy priority among Members here. I am sure like many Deputies across the House, access to carer's allowance, home care hours and disability services are frequent issues that are raised with my office.

The carer's allowance payment needs to be reformed, beginning with the abolition of the means test. The payment itself was designed for people caring for older people and is therefore outdated. The payment itself is entirely inadequate. We know that caring households face additional costs due to caring. Two in five such households have a household income of less than €30,000 a year, and nearly 70% find it difficult to make ends meet. It is estimated that a household caring for a child with a profound disability has additional costs of €244 a week, while the carer's allowance is only €260. That is only a difference of €16. This rate of payment falls way below the poverty line, and with St. Vincent de Paul estimating that for 2024, €346 was needed, this means that many carers on the payment are €86 below the poverty line.

As the means test is based on household income, it leaves many carers who do not receive the payment, the majority of whom are women, financially dependent on their partners. This is another reason we must end the means test. A further point I will add is that taxation of the carer's allowance is grossly unfair. When we look at other comparable payments such as the jobseeker's or disability allowances, we see that they are not taxed even though the carer's allowance is. This places an undue penalty on family carers and further diminishes the caring allowance. We must reform the carer's allowance.

I note that in the programme for Government, there is a commitment to continue to increase the income disregards for the carer's allowance in each budget "with a view to phasing out the means test during the lifetime of the Government". This wording is obviously not what was sold to the electorate because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are on record as committing to abolishing the means test. The wording in the programme for Government is a weak commitment to family carers and is one they will not buy. I ask that the Government once again makes a commitment to abolishing the means test, not having "a view" to abolishing it.

Family carers save the State €20 billion a year, which is close to the annual budget of the HSE, and provide 19 million hours in unpaid care every week. We need to value and recognise the societal good provided by family carers and abolish the means test. We also need to look at the appeals process. I have raised the fact that some family carers are waiting over four months for a decision to access the carer's allowance. Figures show that in 2024, the average wait time for progressing a carer's allowance appeal was 16.9 weeks, or over four months. In 2023, the wait time was 16.6 weeks, while in 2022 it was 12.7 weeks. Overall, family carers have seen processing times for their appeals increase by nearly a third since 2022. These are just average, and I am aware that a number of carers are waiting well over a year on their appeals, so the wait times are much higher for so many carers. For a family carer, accessing the payment can be a lifeline. We cannot expect family carers to wait for well up to a year for a decision on their appeal. We are seeing a year-on-year increase in the Department's need to get a handle on this processing time.

The motion also highlights statutory home care. This was a Government commitment made back in 2017, and it had a deadline for 2021, when it was set for implementation. It was a deadline the Government missed. In 2023, €1.5 billion was spent by the Government on the fair deal scheme, compared to only €723 million on home care. We have a long way to go to scale up investment to ensure that people have the right to be cared for in their community. The ESRI has estimated that the projected demand for a statutory home care scheme could increase from 18.56 million hours in 2019 to nearly 42 million hours following that.

When we look at nursing home care, we see that the Government spent €1.5 billion on the fair deal scheme compared to €723 million on home care. Given the projected demand, we clearly need to scale up the amount of investment in home care to ensure we can deliver a statutory home care scheme. Yet it is not just a matter of funding, as we all know. There is a massive recruitment and retention issue in the home care sector. I hope we can see further action on addressing the recruitment crisis. Failure to do so will only slow down the introduction of that statutory scheme.

See this speech in context