Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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78. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the reason so many applications for the domiciliary care allowance are rejected; the plans in place to deal with this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62262/25]

Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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I am taking question No. 78 on behalf of Deputy Ardagh.

She has been called to another meeting in her constituency.

I want to raise the issue of the high rejection rates for the domiciliary care allowance, DCA, applications. Families caring for children with disabilities are under immense pressure and when these applications are refused, it adds enormous emotional and financial strain. Almost one in three applications are being turned down, with many only succeeding on appeal. A considerable number of the rejected applications are being overturned on appeal. I recognise, however, the decreased waiting times for appeals.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputies Ardagh and Daly for this question. DCA is a non-means-tested payment of €360 per month and is payable in respect of a child aged under 16 who has a severe disability. The child must require continuous care and attention substantially over and above that required by other children their age.

Applications for DCA are decided by a deciding officer on an individual case-by-case basis and based on the details provided in the application form by the applicant themselves and by the child’s GP or specialist. All new applications for DCA are referred for the opinion of a medical assessor in the Department. The medical assessor considers the severity of the child's condition, the expected duration, and the child's associated care needs, and then provides his or her medical professional opinion in relation to the child's eligibility for DCA. This is to aid the deciding officer in making a fair and accurate decision on the eligibility of the child for the scheme.

The main reason, to date, for an application for DCA to be unsuccessful is that the application does not show that the child satisfies the medical criteria for the scheme. Eligibility for DCA is not based entirely on the child's disability or diagnosis, but primarily on the impact of the disability or diagnosis in terms of the associated care and attention required by the child compared to another child of the same age without their disability. Where decisions are overturned on review or appeal, this does not mean that the initial decision was incorrect. A decision can be overturned because the person requesting a review or appeal provides additional information that was not previously made available. Applicants are asked to provide as much detail as possible at application stage.

My Department's officials and I are committed to providing a quality service to applicants for DCA. Earlier this year, we extended the MyWelfare service to provide for an online application process. As part of this process, the opportunity was taken to explore the design of the application form to make it easier for applicants. This involved consultation with relevant groups.

Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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Between 2020 and 2024, 52,541 applications were made, with 35,234 granted. Out of the 17,695 that were not allowed, 11,087 were appealed, with 60% of the appeals seeing the original decisions overturned and DCA allowed. Out of 67 cases that were taken for judicial review, 50 were won. I absolutely accept the Minister and the Department's bona fides in this regard and that we must have a robust system so that the DCA goes to the people who need it most, but we have to be careful that the system is not too rigid and does not leave people behind.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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I want to talk to the Minister about the filling out of these forms. The parents of children with additional needs are the exact same as every single parent in the State. They want the best for their kids, they want their kids to be given a chance, and they want their kids to be able to thrive. They celebrate the milestones for their kids the same as every parent. In order to be able to fill out a DCA form, they have to write about their children on their worst day, about the implications for the families, about the care needs, about the impact of the disability, and all of the things that are negative about their children. They must write all of the things that they do not want to think about. Like every parent, they want to think about how their children does well and the milestones they hit. Instead, the parents have to talk about not hitting those milestones, about the negative impacts on the families, and about the negative impact on their homes. I was with a mother in my clinic on Monday morning and she described having to fill out the DCA form. I was encouraging her to appeal on the basis that 60% were overturned on appeal. She told me that it was exhausting and very hard to have to describe her child like that. I promised her that I would take the opportunity, if I could, to make that known directly to the Minister.

Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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In our discussions last night on the social welfare Bill, I asked the Minister about increasing the eligibility of the DCA from the age of 16 to 18. I also mentioned difficulties a lot of families were having with this particular application. In his reply today, the Minister mentioned the criteria of "care and attention required by the child compared to another child of the same age". This is so hard for a parent to get their head around. Some of the applications are going to a GP who has not seen the child. The GP is filling out the form, ticking the matrix box, and putting down that the child is okay. This goes back to a discussion I had with the Minister about appeals. It is when people get one-to-one meetings with the person across a desk that they are able to describe what is happening on a daily basis in their families. We need to look at this again. I appreciate that the Minister has looked at it but we need to look at the application form. It is way too restrictive. We need to encourage people to look at those 60% of appeals that have been successful and encourage people to do a day-to-day diary of how this affects their family, day in and day out. That is where we need to get to. I appeal to the Minister to go back and look at the restrictive nature of this form.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I have actually started the process of looking at all the forms in the Department. This entire office probably engages with all the forms on a daily basis. I would certainly like to get feedback from all the Deputies. We looked at the DCA form during the year. We engaged with DCA recipients and carers' advocacy groups, which improved the process. We provided additional information and online videos. I want to make the process as seamless as possible. I am very conscious of this and I keep reminding the officials in my Department that parents who are applying for DCA are going through really difficult journeys and that we have siloed them and are making their lives very difficult. We want to try to make this as easy a process as possible, bearing in mind that there need to be controls. We need to make this process as easy as possible.

We have prioritised DCA appeals throughout 2025. There are currently 420 DCA appeals in hand. That figure in January 2025 was 1,700. Of the 420, 92% have been received since August 2025. I have made a very direct decision to focus on DCA appeals. It is going to kick out some other appeals but I really want to make sure that we do these forms properly and that they are not re-traumatising parents who are already in very difficult daily situations.

Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for the tone of his reply. It was really important because this is about compassion, fairness and efficiency. The fact that such a high proportion of decisions are overturned on appeal suggests that the initial assessment process is not working as it might. It does create unnecessary stress and pressure on parents who are already under additional pressure. I also want to recognise the increase in the income disregard in the carers' allowance. For a long time and for many of those families in that situation, this was the only payment they were getting from the State to support the children with disabilities. With the Minister's initiative on the income disregard, many more of those families will hopefully receive more support.

Perhaps the Minister has already done so, but will he commit to publishing regular statistics on approvals, refusal rates, processing times and appeal outcomes? Perhaps the Minister will also establish a working group with parent representatives and disability advocates so that we deal with this issue in a humane and compassionate way.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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We made a lot of changes in recent years to DCA. In fairness to the Department, there were 29,305 people receiving DCA in respect of 31,628 children in 2015. In 2024, there were 57,319 people receiving DCA in respect of 64,676 children. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that people have that support. We want to make further changes where possible. We have also expanded the payment in relation to DCA to parents of children or babies who remain in hospital immediately after birth. We have doubled the periods for which DCA has continued to be payable for a child who has been admitted to hospital on a full-time basis. As Deputy Daly has said, the changes in income disregard for carers' allowance will also ensure that people get a lot more support.

We are committed to supporting parents. The Department is committed to doing that. We will bring to the table the feedback we get from discussions like this about those forms and the application process. We are constantly ensuring that the appeals process in particular is as efficient as possible. This is why the online process has made a big change.