Holly Cairns (Cork South-West, Social Democrats)
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This Government constantly tells us that it values the work of carers. It has a chance to prove that in the budget next week. So far, carers have never been prioritised by this Government or previous governments. The Taoiseach does not have to take my word for that. A report from Family Carers Ireland last year was damning. It found that an overwhelming majority of carers - 70% - find it difficult to make ends meet. That is the reality of life for carers in Ireland. Many are forced to cut back on essentials just to make ends meet.

That kind of treatment of carers is shameful. People have to work 24-7 because essential services are either non-existent or threadbare. Carers have been left to fill the gaps in a broken system and fight endless battles for every small scrap of State support. The means test for carers is a perfect example of this. In no other line of work are people assessed on their partner's income, household savings or anything else. Anyone starting work as a garda, nurse or teacher is simply paid for their work but carers are treated very differently. Despite being the backbone of the care system in this country and saving the State more than €20 billion a year, carers are asked to jump through endless hoops to secure a small allowance.

This approach is not just bureaucratic and exhausting; it is insulting. It reveals that the State really treats carers like their work is somehow optional and that it views supporting them like some kind of charity, instead of treating care like the essential work it is.

Every year at budget time, I say the same thing: show me your budget, and I will show you your priorities. The truth is that if the State really valued carers or the work they do, they would be supported. They would not be forced to beg, fight and plead for crumbs from the budgetary table.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has costed the removal of the means test for carer's allowance at €375 million a year. The Government could more than pay for that by tripling the bank levy, which would raise €400 million. Removing the means test for carer's allowance is affordable and achievable. It will be in the Social Democrats' alternative budget. Tomorrow the Dáil will debate a Social Democrats' motion on removing the means test for carers. Will the Government support it? Will the Government finally abolish the means test for carers?

Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Cairns for raising a very important issue. We value the work of carers. Michael Woods brought in the carer's allowance quite a number of years ago. He was a Fianna Fáil Minister for social protection and at the time it was a novel concept. It was quite innovative. It started at a very low level, but incrementally things have improved significantly. We committed in the programme for Government to eliminate the means test. There is a tendency in the House to deny any progress at all about anything, and the world always seems to be miserable. There are huge challenges out there facing people and there are particularly huge challenges facing carers. Nonetheless, there has been progress. There are about 100,000 people now in receipt of carer's allowance. The numbers are increasing every year. The number of recipients is up from about 63,000 in 2015, which is nearly a 62% increase. Expenditure has gone from about €611 million to €1.24 billion. It can be more, but that does not suggest nobody cares on the Government side.

We need to reconcile the Parliamentary Budget Office's estimate of €300 million with the Department of Social Protection, which is saying €600 million. That is what is being estimated in the current round of Estimates. The Department is saying it could even go up, because obviously there would be an additional increase in the numbers. That is something which needs to be reconciled in terms of the actual cost. The Government proposes to phase in the removal of the means test. Broader progress will be made on income supports more generally. For example, the income disregard went up in July from €450 to €625 for a single person and from €900 to €1,250 for carers with a spouse or a partner. That was a result of last year's budget measure. That means more and more people can avail of the carer's allowance payment. In terms of the respite, the carer's support grant itself has been brought up to about €2,000. That is up significantly from where it was some years ago. It is up about €300 since 2021. In the budget there will be a series of measures in respect of carers. Carer's benefit has been extended to the self-employed for the first time since January. Furthermore, the Minister for Social Protection will be bringing proposals to the Government, in the context of the budget, specifically on carers. That series of proposals will be in the context of an overall welfare budget that could be in the order of €1.7 billion or €1.8 billion. However, other categories of social protection have to be looked after as well, in the context of the budget.

Holly Cairns (Cork South-West, Social Democrats)
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The Taoiseach is acknowledging the need to abolish the means test for carers, from what I can gather. There is a commitment to abolish it over the term of this Government. The question is this: why wait? The Taoiseach says we do not acknowledge the work being done. I am acknowledging that this kind of work - these incremental reforms and the piecemeal things he is talking about - are bureaucratic.

Carers deserve better. They deserve fair pay and dignity now. They deserved it yesterday. They deserved it years ago. The Government can do this now, but it is still being denied to them. The Government has a choice. It can choose to provide immediate recognition, security and support for carers. It is not too late to do that in this budget. I keep coming back to this point. In no other work are people means-tested like this. They are just paid for the work they do. People live in a state of fear and anxiety that any meagre change in their incomes will tip them over a cliff edge into financial insecurity as a result of the system we have in place now. The Taoiseach acknowledged the need to do this over the term of the Government. It can be done overnight in this budget. The money is there.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Thank you, Deputy.

Holly Cairns (Cork South-West, Social Democrats)
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I will ask again: will the Government support the Social Democrats motion tomorrow on abolishing the means test for carers and will it be done in this budget?

Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy is correct when she says we have choices. Everyone in the House has choices. The estimated cost is around €600 million. We also want to increase domiciliary care allowance and other categories of social protection, which the Minister will bring to the Government in the first instance and then the measures will be announced on budget day. It will all come under an overall amount that will be allocated to the Department of Social Protection. If we increase one category, by definition other categories may not get a similar increase or may not get an increase at all. We have to balance this and that is why it will be done incrementally.

We have made significant improvements in the disregards in the past two to three years and that should be acknowledged. However, we want to go faster now in moving to a position where we can eliminate the means test in its entirety.

The commitment is like that in the Social Democrats manifesto, which I looked at before I came in. It did not say that this would be done in one budget. It indicated that it would be done over the lifetime of the Government.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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As we near the budget announcement next week, there is no doubt about the demands on the Government with the cost-of-living crisis, with families and the elderly severely squeezed financially at this time. Tillage and dairy farmers are under enormous pressure. Independent Ireland has also called for the abolition of the carer's means test.

One thing Independent Ireland has called for in the past two years is to bring the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% for the hospitality sector. That was the rate until September 2023. This sector is under enormous pressure as cafés and restaurants throughout the country are losing money on a daily basis. In 2024, 600 cafés and similar food establishments closed their doors. Also under enormous pressure are restaurants, most of which close four or five days per week as it is too costly to open their doors. Everywhere I go, whether it is Dublin, Galway, Wexford or west Cork, the cry is the same; the VAT rate has to drop or the doors will shut. One café owner told me at the end of July that the first time he had made a profit to pay himself was two weeks earlier. He had been open since January this year. He knows it is curtains for his business.

The crisis the sector is in now is that the new VAT rate drop, if it comes, will not go to customers as a reduction. It will just help to pay bills, such as energy bills, that have spiralled out of control. It is the same for restaurants, which in most of the country are closed for most of the week as they suffer too many losses if the doors are open seven days per week. This Government has promised a drop in the VAT rate for these businesses for the past year or so and it cannot be kicked down the road any longer. We cannot allow these small, but effective businesses that are employing ten, and in some cases up to 20, local people, including young people and students, just to shut their doors. These businesses are not asking for handouts. They pay rates, electricity, oil and rubbish bills; they have staffing costs; they have to pay PRSI; they pay for insurance and maintenance; and they purchase stock. Lately, a new charge has been levied by the councils for outdoor seating. All this and then they are expected to turn a profit. This has turned dream cafés and food outlets into nightmare adventures.

In recent media reports, I have heard the Labour Party, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit all say they will hit out at the Government if it considers a drop in the VAT rate to 9%. Independent Ireland stands by these businesses as we are in touch with these people on the ground. We know the exact difficulties they are going through. Before the last election, Government TDs promised an immediate drop in the VAT rate. Will the Taoiseach clearly tell the House today that the Government is still committed to dropping the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% in next week's budget, effective immediately? If not - if it tries to kick the can down the road - it will lead to hundreds of cafés and restaurants closing their doors for good this winter.

Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue for a very significant industry in the country. He spoke eloquently about the west Cork experience. As he will know, the Minister of State, Deputy O’Sullivan, has been hounding me on this issue, as has the Minister, Deputy Foley, from the Kerry perspective. All the counties where hospitality is particularly strong in the summer period have been strong advocates for an initiative along the lines of the one the Deputy is proposing. The budget will be an investment in the future of the country. The first phase of that was announced in the national development plan in terms of infrastructure, water, electricity, energy, public transport, road transport and digital health. These are fundamentals that simply have to happen for the future of the country. The other area is competitiveness, stronger investment in research and development and also competitiveness of certain sectors like hospitality.

The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment did a study over a year ago on the impact of increased labour costs and increased costs generally on small businesses. It was accepted that the hospitality sector bore the brunt of many of the extra costs such as the bank holiday cost, the additional sick leave, the minimum wage increases and the approximation to the living wage, and found them difficult to absorb. That is well documented in the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment’s document. The Restaurant Association of Ireland commissioned the economist Anthony Foley to do some work on the correlation between reduced VAT rates in the past and job creation in a specific sector. A lot of work has been done on that.

I am not in a position to indicate what will actually happen on budget day itself but I recognise that this is a very important issue. In the context of the global situation - the turbulence, the tariffs and all of that - investment in infrastructure is key. We are putting a lot of money aside too. By the end of next year, there will be €22 billion in our Future Ireland Fund. That is a substantial fund despite what is being said about our being reckless with the public finances. We are putting substantial amounts of money to one side but we want to maintain competitiveness in domestic industries such as the hospitality sector. We will certainly be examining all of the issues the Deputy has identified.

I think we need a bit of perspective in the debate as well. I am not quite sure everything in some of these establishments is nightmarish. I spent a few evenings in west Cork. I had better be careful what I say. I was not able to participate in any lock-ins for obvious reasons, but that might be what is behind the Deputy’s reference to nightmarish experiences the following day. It was a very pleasant experience. People need a break in terms of viability and that is where we are focused.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I thank the Taoiseach. As he will know from his holidays in west Cork or elsewhere, when there is a huge influx of people, there is a bonus from that but the problem is that the bonus does not last. If you go past a café today, there might be two or three people sitting outside it. It is during the busier times that they make their little bit of profit. The proof is in the experience of the business person I mentioned earlier, who opened a café in January and had to wait until the end of July to get an income for himself. That says it all. He spent the previous seven months earning nothing but paying staff, rates and everything. He obviously had a dream that this business would last and survive, but his dream is turning into a nightmare.

As I said earlier, 600 of these businesses went last year and another 150 went in the first three months of this year. If they are employing 15 people on average, it means that up to 11,250 people have lost their jobs, with thousands more jobs to go if the Government does not step in. Next week, this Government has a chance to drop the VAT rate immediately. Will the Taoiseach tell us if this will happen on the day the budget is announced? If he is going to tell us he is kicking the can down the road, it will lead to hundreds and hundreds more closures.

Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand the issue the Deputy is raising. The costs increased significantly for the sector. I acknowledge that. The data we are getting in is not showing any significant decline in employment, but there could be churn. Some people could be in difficulty while other new businesses are established and opened. We want long-term sustainability for the industry and the hospitality sector. You could have a crowded restaurant but the margins might not be great when it comes to the owner’s bottom line. A lot of hard work goes into this industry and maybe the yield has not been what the hard work would deserve in terms of margins and so on.

We are looking at viability in a number of sectors. More generally in terms of the budget itself, Deputy Collins understands that I cannot announce the budget today as it is not the norm. The Deputy's representations are heard, along with those of his colleagues. Although it applies to both urban and rural Ireland, there is no doubt there are certain counties, particularly given the seasonal nature of rural Ireland and holiday areas, such as west Cork, Kerry and the west of Ireland, where it is a significant issue.