Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 10:

In page 8, after line 32, to insert the following:

“Report on individual means assessment for Carer’s Allowance

16. The Minister shall, within six months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas on options for assessing applicants to Carer’s Allowance on individual means, rather than the means of their partner or other household members.”.

This amendment addresses the same issue to which I previously referred, namely, the potential assessment of applicants for the carer's allowance on the basis of their individual means rather than the means of their partner or other household members. Research from the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice shows that even before the cost-of-living crisis, income supports for family carers were inadequate to support low-income households and those who are, for example, caring for a child with an intellectual disability. We know from the Indecon report that there are significant costs associated with care. An affected household might be incurring additional weekly costs of €244 compared with a similarly composed household without disability or care needs.

We know that only one in five of Ireland's carers receives carer's allowance due to the strict eligibility criteria relating to the payment. The current income thresholds do not reflect the situation. The situation as it stands is also affected by the housing crisis in that many people may comprise a household. A person who is responsible for the care of a child or older person may live in a home with two or three other adults who are working. Their money is used to pay for normal things. Adult children may be working and living at home and so forth. That household still has care costs. Somebody in the household is not able to work because he or she is required to be available to deliver care but does not qualify for carer's allowance. There is an assumption included there. We disqualify people from carer's allowance on the basis of an assumption that everybody else in the household is pooling their resources to cover the costs of the individual who needs care and the person who is delivering care. We cannot make that assumption because in many cases, those people are saving for a mortgage to allow them to move out. They are not necessarily contributing to the costs of the household.

Such a situation also creates extreme vulnerability in respect of pensions. Caregivers may be using ten or 15 years of their life delivering care while not qualifying for the carer's allowance. They are then dependent on what they may get from other household members. They are the people who have been shown to be delivering care and should, therefore, have access to a source of income and financial independence. All of that is crucial because the value and contribution to the State of care work happens irrespective of what is happening in the household around that carer. If those family carers were not there and delivering that care, there would be significant costs to the State because other options, such as residential care or substantial home care packages, would be required. On that point, I hope we move towards a statutory home care model instead of a residential care model. Carers are making an enormous contribution to the State. However, they are not getting recognition or support from the State because it is assumed that will be outsourced to their wider families.

This also comes back to the independence issue. I am not sure if I have submitted an amendment in respect of the disability allowance but the same issue applies in that respect. It is almost the other side of the care piece. A household comprising five or six people might include one person who does not qualify for the carer's allowance and another who does not qualify for the disability allowance. Two individuals in such a household would not qualify for support because of the incomes of other persons in the household. In the case of the disability allowance, it was also pointed out to me - and this is a strong point - that the idea of means testing the whole household in the context of disability allowance is flawed. Sometimes people with disabilities do not have carers and are able to live alone. However, some of those people might wish to form a romantic relationship and have a partner who they might wish to move in with them. Such people might wish to have a relationship with someone or to have flatmates who live with them but are not their carers. They might wish to have a partner or even a friend live with them but cannot risk doing so because it might jeopardise their disability allowance.

All of these amendments go to the core of ensuring that the circumstances, needs and contributions of every person in this State are individually recognised. The direction of travel should be towards the individualisation of core social protection payments for persons who are caring or seeking a non-contributory pension or who have a disability. I note this was one of the key levers identified by the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality.