Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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96. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he will review the assessment criteria for social protection payments in cases where applicants and-or part-time farming applicants are not in paid employment outside the home but provide essential unpaid care and support within the household; and if he will consider allowing greater flexibility in recognising minimal or subsistence-level farming activity (details supplied), in view of concerns that rigid application of the rules is leaving some families without necessary supports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50808/25]

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Will the Minister consider reviewing the assessment criteria for social protection payments, especially in cases where applicants, including part-time farmers, are not in paid employment outside of the home but are providing unpaid care within the household? Could there be more flexibility in recognising minimal or subsistence-level farming activity, given the concerns that the current rigid rules are leaving some families without the supports they badly need?

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides a number of supports for small-scale farmers in the circumstances outlined by Deputy Roche. Farm assist is the statutory income support specifically for farmers on low incomes. A person can qualify for farm assist if he or she is aged from 18 to 66, engaged in farming and meets the other statutory scheme conditions of the scheme. The farm assist scheme is similar to the jobseeker's allowance in a number of ways, such as the retention of secondary benefits and access to activation programmes where a person may want to take up off-farm employment or is seeking educational or training opportunities.

However, the means test is more generous on farm assist. For example, under jobseeker's allowance, self-employed income is assessed at 100%; this is reduced to 70% under farm assist. Child disregards apply under farm assist which do not exist under jobseeker's allowance. In addition, account is taken of any exceptional circumstances to ensure the assessment for the scheme reflects the current situation accurately. The scheme is demand-led and there are currently just over 3,300 farmers availing of the farm assist payment.

The Government acknowledges the valuable role that family carers play and remains fully committed to supporting carers in that role, including those who care in a farm situation. This is recognised in the programme for Government. We provide a range of income supports for carers, including carer's allowance, carer's benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the annual carer's support grant. If the Deputy has specific cases that are not qualifying, I ask him to bring them to my attention and we will work to try and assist him on those.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I think all of us would have specific cases. Obviously, it would not be an avalanche by any manner of means, but we have people come to our constituency offices with those circumstances where they would be engaged full time in caring and their farm would be more of a financial burden than financially rewarding. They are doing the State a great service by providing care for their loved one.

The calculation, based on the number of acres and the numbers of livestock, sometimes prohibits them from gaining carer's allowance for their loved one. When I mentioned "rigid", that is what I am referencing. There is a perception, somehow or other, that if you have land and-or a small number of stock, the calculation is that you are doing all right and that you are outside of your means, but there needs to be greater flexibility with those instances that I am referencing.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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As I said in my main response, farm assist is a flexible payment as compared to, for instance, jobseeker's allowance, and there are better supports available to those on farm assist. That flexibility is built-in, as I said. Self-employed income, under jobseeker's allowance, is assessed at 100%. Under farm assist, that is 70%. Child disregards apply under farm assist which do not apply to jobseekers.

In relation to the home carer's scheme, we are trying to ensure that carers who look after people within the home - the family carers, be that in a home or on a farm - are also given support through pension and we have reduced a scheme in recent years to ensure that is done.

The means-testing measurement is there to ensure that we target resources at those who most need them and that those resources, which are scarce, go to the areas that need them most. If there are specific cases, we will engage with the Deputy on them.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I fully accept that cases have to be assessed and the criteria are strict. The cases that I mentioned, as I said, involve only a small of people who have come to my constituency office who would fall into that category where they are full time.

In fact, in order to come to the constituency office, they would sometimes have to get somebody to stand in and do the caring while they were absent from the house. That will tell the Minister the level of necessity there is and the requirement there would be for the Department and the Minister to be more compassionate in terms of the way we would deal with cases like that.