Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 252: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs his views on the fact that almost four out of five carers are not entitled to the carer's allowance or carer's benefit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35803/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has made significant improvements to the carers allowance and Carers Benefit in recent years. The number of hours a person can work and continue to receive payment has increased from 12 to 15 hours per week. The income disregard has been increased in Budget 2008 to €332.50 for a single person and €665 for a couple. The respite care grant was extended to all people providing full time care and Budget 2008 provides for the payment to be increased to €1,700 in respect of each care recipient. Other enhancements include care sharing and the extension of the Carers Benefit scheme duration to 24 months.

At present there are over 34,000 carers in receipt of a weekly payment for caring from my Department. Of these, over 32,400 are in receipt of carer's allowance and over 1,980 are in receipt of carer's benefit. In addition, over 8,000 carers have received a respite care grant from my Department in respect of 2007 and applications continue to be received. One of the fundamental qualifying conditions for all of these payments is that the recipient must be providing full time care and attention to a person who needs it.

According to Census 2006 there are 160,917 people providing at least 1 hour of unpaid help per week for a friend or family member with a long term illness, health problem or disability. Of this number, 93,363 people provide up to 2 hours of unpaid help per day and a further 17,093 people provide unpaid help of between 2 and 4 hours per day. So there are approximately 50,400 people providing care for more than 29 hours per week or just over 4 hours per day. Of these, approximately 19,600 people are classified by principal economic status as being at work and many of these would be engaged in employment for more than 15 hours per week which would make them ineligible for carer's allowance or benefit.

Budget 2007 provided for significant structural reforms to introduce new arrangements whereby people in receipt of a social welfare payment, other than carer's allowance or benefit, who are also providing someone with full time care and attention, will be able to retain their main welfare payment and receive another payment, depending on their means, the maximum of which will be equivalent to a half rate carer's allowance. Similarly, people currently in receipt of a carer's allowance, who may have an underlying eligibility for another social welfare payment, can transfer to that other payment and continue to receive up to a half rate carer's allowance. These new arrangements which came into force in September 2007 apply to almost all weekly social welfare payments including state pension contributory and non-contributory; widow/er's contributory/non-contributory pension and to people in receipt of qualified adult allowances.

I will keep supports for carers available from my Department under review in order to continue to improve the schemes and ensure commitments on income support are delivered.