Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)

I will focus on two areas in the budget. One is the carer's allowance, particularly the means test. I was spokesperson on social protection previously and I have done some work with the carers' association. In the previous general election, the issue of the carer's allowance was discussed at some length. Two areas of concern were raised, one of which was the principle that if somebody is caring for somebody else, the payment should not be a social assistance payment but a payment for the care being given for that work.

Many carers felt they were providing a real benefit to the State and saving it money and that was not being recognised.

The second area was the principle that many people were excluded from receiving the carer’s allowance, especially because they, either by way of part-time work or by way of their partner’s income, were denied the allowance. It was particularly cruel that somebody’s partner might have a very good job, get overtime, get a bonus or receive a promotion, and when that happens, their partner who is caring for somebody lost their carer’s allowance. Often, it might happen over time and people are in real fear they owe money to the Department.

The two issues, namely, the principle that carers are doing a job and should be paid for caring and the exclusion of people from the allowance, were real issues in the general election, so I welcome the measures in the budget that include significantly more people in the carer’s allowance. In particular, if there are two people in a home and one is working, my understanding of the budget is that the other person can be earning up to €108,000 per year and the person who is caring will be able to receive the full carer’s allowance. There will be many different examples people give, but the vast majority of people who came to me were not earning anything like €108,000 per year. That measure, while not abolishing the means test for carers, has gone a very significant way to meeting the requests of the group who were excluded from the allowance. It does not yet address the first point, which is the principle that they are doing work, so it should not be a social assistance payment but should be a payment for caring. While in this budget we incorporated a huge number of people into the carer’s allowance, we have not yet got to the point of dealing with that issue. The abolition of the carer’s means test over five years is an objective of the Government but we have to move quickly on it.

It is worth acknowledging, because it has not been acknowledged significantly, that we have done a huge amount of work, especially with regard to couples. The €52,000 figure for single people still seems like a significant amount, but there can be people who, by virtue of part-time work or other income, get caught, so we still have a little work to do for them. However, the idea you can earn €52,000 a year as a single person or up to €108,000 a year as a couple and still receive the full carer’s allowance is something I am appreciative of and I appreciate the work the Government has done on that.

Having outlined something I am appreciative of, let me move on to the area where I would have liked to have seen more. The Disability Federation of Ireland did a significant amount of work with me in the last three years on trying to identify the real cost of disability and a payment that might be made. The previous Green Paper was rightly pulled because it sought to categorise people by virtue of their disabilities and their economic ability to work. We knew that, first, it would have been very impractical and, second, there was a sense it was echoing a British model that had not worked. We come back to the point on recognising the real cost of disability. When you have a disability, your cost of living is significantly more.

Am I sharing time?

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