Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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68. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to provide additional supports to carers; her further plans to remove the means test for the carer's allowance. [38858/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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It is clear through the commitments contained in both the Programme for Government and in the National Carers’ Strategy, that this Government recognises the crucial role that family carers play in Irish society and is fully committed to their support through a range of supports and services. The main income supports provided by my Department include carers allowance, carers benefit, domiciliary care allowance and carers support grant. Spending on these payments in 2018 is expected to amount to almost €1.2 billion.

Turning specifically to carer's allowance, this is a payment made to people who are providing full-time care and attention and whose income falls below certain limits. The application of a means-test not only ensures that the recipient has an income need but also that scarce resources are targeted to those with the greatest need. The means test for carers allowance is already one of the most generous in the social protection system. At the end of July 2018, there were over 77,000 people in receipt of carers allowance.

Removing the means test for carers allowance would, in effect, create a new universal social protection scheme for those meeting the scheme’s basic condition. Based on the total number of carers identified as part of Census 2016, it has been estimated that a universal carers payment could cost in excess of €1billion per annum over and above current spending. Increased expenditure on this scale would fundamentally change the nature of financial support and clearly reduce the scope to fund other critical schemes and services.

While I will continue to seek to improve the support for carers, any changes to payment schemes must be considered in an overall budgetary context.