Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)

I thank Deputy Moynihan again for raising this matter. The Government recognises the complexity of caring roles and the reality that many carers continue to provide full-time care while navigating other life events, including maternity leave. As I said in my opening remarks, this Government has committed to improving support for carers and those they care for. The significant changes to the means test for carer's allowance announced in last week's budget clearly demonstrate that commitment. The programme for Government contains a number of commitments to improve the supports available to family carers. These include a commitment to continue to increase the carer's support grant and to progressively increase weekly carer's support payments. It also clearly sets out a timeline which commits to significantly increasing the income disregard for carer's allowance in each budget with a view to phasing out the means test during the lifetime of the Government. We have already made progress in this regard, including in the recent budget. In addition to the changes to the carer's allowance disregard, as part of budget 2026 we are also increasing the rates of maternity benefit and carer's allowance by €10 per week from January. I can assure the Deputy that we will continue to keep the range of income supports available to both carers and those availing of the maternity benefit under review so that the overall objectives of the scheme and the Department are met.

I will bring the very valid issues Deputy Moynihan raised to the attention of the Minister for Social Protection and will ask if they can be included in the forthcoming social welfare Bill. I am sure the Deputy will also raise it with the Minister himself but he will have our support on that.

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