Results 1-20 of 94 for carers speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Support for Carers: Motion [Private Members] (24 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I think Deputy Smith is not coming in. I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this important motion. People Before Profit strongly believes we should abolish the means test for carer's allowance. Indeed, we are against means testing full stop. I will talk a bit more about that. In the case of carers, it is completely unacceptable. Hundreds of thousands of people in this...

Disability Justice: Motion [Private Members] (17 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...a homeless hub. I could go on with more examples. What do we need? We need the Government to accept the rights of people with disabilities. We must end the disgraceful means-testing of disability payments, carer's payments and so on. We need a new referendum to establish the constitutional rights of people with disabilities. We must have universal payments that actually take into...

Taoiseach a Ainmniú - Nomination of Taoiseach (9 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...or cannot get funding for the autism classes they are looking for. There is the failure to ratify the optional protocol for people with disabilities and the shocking fact that rather than people with disabilities and carers being given rights, they are means-tested and are often denied the supports and rights they deserve. I found it particularly shocking that at its Ard-Fheis at the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (20 Mar 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...people. When you look at the chronic state of our health service, the understaffing and under-resourcing of special needs and our failure to vindicate the rights of people with disabilities and carers - all that hardship and suffering - the other side of the coin is record profits for the corporations. Vulture funds and wealth asset management companies are making a fortune. Property...

Supporting People with Disabilities and Carers: Motion [Private Members] (5 Mar 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...of women's rights and women's equality but he feels absolutely failed and insulted by the fact the Government has not included in the referendum rights for people with disabilities and indeed for carers. He feels the phrase "strive to" is an insult which means nothing and he has no trust in the Government or that it is - to use what I think is the Taoiseach's phrase - a stepping stone...

Ceisteanna - Questions: An Garda Síochána (28 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: All of our hearts go out to the five-year-old girl and her carer who were the victims of a horrendous and tragic event. However, the expressions of bewilderment from the Government or An Garda Síochána about how the unfolding events could have happened are, to be honest, quite staggering. People, and not just us but others, who are watching the far right have been warning how...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (24 May 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Owen is a pensioner with severe diabetes who has had half his leg amputated and he has associated heart and kidney issues. His wife, Myrna, works full time as a home carer, but because her income takes them over the social housing income threshold, they are living effectively in a cupboard. She sleeps in the bed and Owen has to sleep on a couch with his condition, but cannot sleep until the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (18 May 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 361. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated full-year cost of increasing the respite carer's support grant to €2,500; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23788/23]

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Care Services (11 May 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ..., Disability, Integration and Youth to provide details on the reason a respite service (details supplied) is closed for three months; the replacement service that will be available for parents and carers in the meantime; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22219/23]

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Policies (9 May 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...by people in Gorey about the shock decision to close the St. Aidan's Day Care Centre at Mulcahy House for 12 weeks. It is a respite service for north Wexford. The Taoiseach knows how much family carers save our society in providing care for their loved ones with disabilities, but they need respite services. Now, for 12 weeks, those respite services are going to close and, indeed, there...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (21 Mar 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...in a hostel. She has to get her child to a crèche in Monkstown and if she is late on five days, she will lose her place in the crèche which means she will lose her job because she works as a carer. She has to do that every morning. There is a six-month list. Now we are going to have dozens more people put into that situation with their families and children. What do we say...

Eviction Ban Bill 2022: Second Stage [Private Members] (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: .... An elderly couple were working and paying rent of over €2,500 a month in a top-up arrangement on a HAP tenancy but the husband has early onset Alzheimer's, is no longer getting an income, his wife is now his carer and they cannot pay the rent. It is not their fault but they cannot pay the rent. The Government or the council will not allow a further increase in the HAP payment...

Eviction Ban Bill 2022: Second Stage [Private Members] (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...-up on this extraordinary rent. Now, therefore, they are €2,700 in arrears. If those arrears persist, the couple will face eviction. Imagine that. This is somebody with Alzheimer's disease whose wife is his carer. What is the Minister going to do about? Likewise, there is the family I mentioned who are over the threshold and, with their two kids, face the imminent prospect of...

Energy Costs and Windfall Taxes: Motion [Private Members] (15 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...get a fraction of what is necessary to cover their rent arrears, which will just build and build, and the arrears on their energy bills. What are they supposed to do? This is somebody who is sick and his carer, but there are no answers because the Government will not deal with the fundamental problem, which is profiteering. The scale of the profiteering is absolutely obscene. The five...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (18 Jan 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: .... Let me give the Taoiseach an example, just one of dozens that I encountered over Christmas and the new year, of a woman and her husband with an income of €500 per week from invalidity pension and half carer's allowance. The husband has Alzheimer's disease. When they got a housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancy, he was working. Five years later, the rent has increased and...

Social Welfare Bill 2022: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2022)

Richard Boyd Barrett: .... The Minister should do something about this. Beyond that, I see no justification for why people on illness benefit, jobseeker's benefit, maternity benefit, death benefit, injury benefit, or carer's benefit should not have the fuel allowance. Why should they not have it? There is no good reason for this. They will suffer during the coldest winter. They are suffering with the...

Social Welfare Bill 2022: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2022)

Richard Boyd Barrett: .... We have a 5% increase when inflation is officially running at 8% but in actuality is approximately 9% or more for those low-income households that spend most of their income on food and heating. There is no change to the basic rates of fuel allowance, living alone allowance, domiciliary care allowance, carer's support grant, back to school clothing and footwear allowance or child...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (11 Oct 2022)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...are unnecessarily living in institutions and that 1,300 people below the age of 65 are living in nursing homes. I was also informed that many young people are still living with parents who are their carers. However for 1,500 of those people, their carers are over the age of 70 and for 400 of them their carers are over the age of 80, begging the question of who will care for these people...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Work Permits (27 Sep 2022)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 5. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will add home care assistants to the critical skills occupations list to address the crisis in recruitment for home carers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46604/22]

Houses of the Oireachtas Commission: Motion: Cabinet Committees (1 Feb 2022)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...workers who played a critical role during Covid, obviously we all accept and welcome the announcement that front-line workers are to get a pandemic bonus, although it should be extended to carers, as has been discussed. There is no doubt that group were on the front line of the Covid response. What does the Taoiseach have to say, if he is not willing to extend that bonus to them, to...