Dáil debates

Wednesday, 31 May 2017

Other Questions

Social Welfare Benefits Eligibility

3:15 pm

Photo of Willie O'DeaWillie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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34. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he is considering developing a different system of assessment for eligibility for disability and carer's allowance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25707/17]

Photo of Willie O'DeaWillie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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My question is pretty much self-explanatory. I think there has been some internal discussion in the Department on this matter. Could the Minister bring us up to date on developments?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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There are no plans to change the system of assessment for eligibility for either disability or carer’s allowance. Helping and supporting people with disabilities to access employment and so enhance their independence is one of the most important and challenging policy issues we face. The recently published Make Work Pay report produced by an interdepartmental group included a number of recommendations relating to the disability allowance payment. The Government has decided to implement some of these while others will require further reflection and a consultation process with disability groups, which my Department has commenced.

I announced a number of immediate changes at the launch of the report in April including a measure to ensure that people with a long-term disability payment who move off the payment to get a job will retain their free travel pass for a period of five years. This is an improvement on the three-year period recommended in the report. This change has now been implemented. I also accepted the report's recommendation to dispense with the requirement that work be of a "rehabilitative nature" for the disability allowance, DA, earnings disregard. Legislation to give effect to this change is included in the forthcoming Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2017.

The income disregard and means test for carers is one of the least onerous within the social protection system. The amount of weekly income that is currently not taken into account is €332.50. In the case of the income of a married couple, civil partners or cohabitants, the first €665 of their combined weekly income is disregarded. A couple under 66 with two children earning a joint annual income of up to €35,400 can qualify for the maximum payment of carer's allowance while such a couple earning €59,300 will still qualify for the minimum rate.

I can assure the Deputy that I will continue to keep the range of supports available to carers and people with disabilities under review. Any improvements or additions to these supports would have to be considered in the context of future budgets. I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Photo of Willie O'DeaWillie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I agree the means test for carer's allowance is quite generous but my question is not directed towards the actual monetary calculation for entitlement to those benefits. Rather, it concerns the physical examination. It has been contended that in applications for carer's allowance, insufficient consideration is given to the totality of the situation and that there is too much focus on the extent of the physical, as opposed to mental, illness of the person cared for. It has also been represented to me that in respect of applications for disability allowance, a person who is claiming mental disability rather than physical disability seems to be at a distinct disadvantage unless they happen to be very bad. I have seen concrete examples of this and I think the statistics would show that. The Minister will be aware that there was an examination of domiciliary care allowance. As a result of that, things like the application form were changed and a new assessment system was put in place. Is anything similar in mind for carer's allowance and disability allowance?

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will know and appreciate, those assessments are not done by me or even my officials. They are done by the medical assessors who work on behalf of the Department to assess the extent to which somebody has a disability or is in need of full-time care. I acknowledge where the Deputy is coming from and his point is very valid. The tradition in Ireland has been to assess a physical disability and not to acknowledge fully that somebody who may have mental health issues may be severely disabled as a result. For many reasons, including stigma and discrimination in the past, this has not been properly recognised or fully understood. There are people who are just as disabled as somebody with a physical disability but because it is a mental health condition or an intellectual disability, this might not always be fully or properly recognised. We are in the process of recruiting a new chief medical officer so I might add this to their list of things to consider once appointed.

Photo of Willie O'DeaWillie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I strongly urge the Minister to look again at this area because the examination and the new approach that was undertaken regarding assessment for domiciliary care allowance have worked extremely well. Is Making Work Pay the report he mentioned in his reply? He may or may not know that we had a visit today from a delegation from Multiple Sclerosis Ireland which asked me to ask him whether he would indicate to the House when the majority of the recommendations of that report will be implemented.

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is a cross-departmental report so it involves my Department, the Minister of State for disability issues and the Minister for Health. There are four big ones in my Department. We have already done the one on the free travel pass. That has already been implemented and provides for five years. The one on the requirement that the work be rehabilitative has effectively been done on an administrative basis but is in the legislation we will discuss shortly. The third one is the guarantee that if a person tries out work and it does not work out, they will have their disability allowance reinstated. In theory, this has already been done but people do not seem to believe it so there is a bit of work to be done there. The fourth one, which relates to the medical card and is the most important issue, is not under my Department's remit. The biggest fear people with disabilities have is that they will lose their medical card if they take up work. I know the Minister for Health has committed to increasing the income limits significantly so that people's fears in that regard will be allayed. Once we have that done, and we hope to do it this year, we will run an information campaign advising people with disabilities as to what has changed and how work might now pay for them.