Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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10. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will report on the supports for carers to help them to take up training, education or employment while continuing to care for a person. [14840/22]

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Will the Minister report on the supports for carers to help them take up training, education or employment while continuing to care for a relative or member of their family?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department provides a range of income supports to full-time carers, including carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the carer’s support grant. Combined spending on these payments to carers in 2022 is estimated to exceed €1.5 billion. A primary qualifying condition for these carer payments is that the applicant provides full-time care and attention to a person in need of such care. The person being cared for must be so incapacitated as to require full-time care and attention and be likely to require this full-time care and attention for at least 12 months. However, to support a carer’s continued attachment to the workforce and broader social inclusion, carers may engage in some employment, education or training while still being regarded as being in a position to provide full-time care. In these circumstances they can continue to receive their full payments. The maximum period in which a person may engage in employment, education and training is 18.5 hours per week. I consider that limit of 18.5 hours to represent a reasonable balance between meeting the care recipient's requirement for full-time care and the carer's need to maintain contact with the workforce.

In addition to income supports, my Department has utilised the Dormant Accounts Fund to support projects that promote training and support for family carers. These projects include the provision of structured training, information and support networks, including the development of support groups to assist with transition at the end of the caring role. The projects are selected as part of a competitive process organised by Pobal. The Department provides a wide range of employment-related supports for all jobseekers. These include delivery of the State’s public employment service, which is delivered through the Department’s nationwide network of Intreo centres and by contractors such as the local employment service.

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister’s reply. She spoke about the 18.5 hours per week, and because of Covid we have moved to online training and people working from home. Can more facilities be put in place to assist carers? One of the problems carers have is that if the member of the family they are looking after passes away, they then find it difficult to get back into the employment system because things have totally changed. Can we do more to help people continue to provide care in the home and at the same time do some online training without them exceeding the 18.5 hours they devote to that experience?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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To support a carer’s continued attachment to the workforce and broader social inclusion, carers may engage in some limited employment, education or training while still being regarded as being in a position to provide full-time care. During this time, adequate provision must be made for the care of the relevant person. Since budget 2020, the number of hours family carers can work, study or attend a training course has increased from 15 hours to 18.5 hours per week. The increase was made in response to requests from carers' organisations and from carers themselves, who found the 15 hours too restrictive. Those in receipt of carer's allowance, carer's benefit and the carer's support grant can avail of this change. Every increase in the hours allowed for a carer to engage in employment, education or training results in an associated shift of the balance towards the needs of the carer over the requirement for providing full-time care for the care recipient. That balance has to be maintained and we have to bear the recipient of the care in mind.

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Minister will have to accept there is a problem.

For instance, I have a constituent who looked after his elderly parents for eight years in total, and when he tried to get back into the workforce, he found there were many areas he was no longer able to work in. He had a health problem and he no longer qualified for any of the benefits because he was means tested for anything he applied for. There is a glitch in the system. Here is someone who saved the State a huge amount of money because he looked after two elderly parents for more than eight years, he probably saved the State well over €200,000 in real terms, yet when they passed away, he was penalised. He did not qualify for any other State support because he was fully means tested in terms of the income his spouse received.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I know that when people have spent a lot of time in the home, caring for people, it can be difficult for them. In December 2020, I approved funding of €577,890 to provide a range of training and supports for family carers for projects under the Dormant Accounts Fund. The purpose of the measure is to increase the employment, including self-employment, and education and training opportunities for carers and young carers. These projects run to the end of June.

In the almost two years I have been in this job, I have really focused on carers. In the first budget, I increased the carer's support grant to the highest level ever to €1,850, which is paid in June to all carers. This year's budget is the second budget in the Department for me. I reformed the carer's allowance means test in terms of the capital disregard and the weekly income disregard. A person used to be able to have up to €20,000. Now, a person can have up to €50,000. A couple can earn up to €750 and still get carer's allowance, and a single person can earn up to €350 per week. We have our decisions on the Pensions Commission's report, and it is a priority for me to provide a pension for carers.