Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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439. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she is satisfied that her Department is automatically paying the respite care grant to all recipients of carer's allowance and half rate carer's allowance; if her attention has been drawn to any cases where persons have had to contact her Department after not getting the grant and if so, the number of cases approximately; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45764/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Respite Care Grant is an annual payment made to carer’s by the Department of Social Protection. The grant is paid automatically to all recipients of carer's allowance and half rate carer's allowance who are in payment on the first Thursday of June each year. Every claim which is in payment on this date automatically gets the respite care grant payment. The only exception to this is a small number of cases where a domiciliary care allowance has been stopped the previous month which automatically places a stop on the respite care grant. If this is not noticed within the short timeframe between the end of May and the first Thursday of June the respite care grant will not issue automatically. In 2013 approximately 70 such cases occurred out of a total of approximately 45,000 carer’s allowance recipients entitled to the respite care grant. These recipients received their respite care grant within days of contacting the department.