Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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434. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will address a matter raised in correspondence (details supplied). [57402/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Government acknowledges the important role that family carers play and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. This commitment is recognised in both the Programme for Government and the National Carers’ Strategy.

The main income supports to family carers provided by my Department are Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance and the Carer’s Support Grant. The estimated expenditure on Carer’s Allowance in 2021 is approximately €953 million. Combined spending on all these payments to carers in 2021 is estimated to be in the region of €1.5 billion.

My Department has recently received the suggestion proposed regarding the introduction of a Benefit of Work Estimator specific to the carer’s income supports. The proposal would have to considered in the context of a range of factors such as IT resources, development costs and potential demand and usage.

It should be noted that the current income disregard and means test for Carer’s Allowance is the most generous within the social welfare system. The amount of weekly earnings disregarded is €332.50 for a single person and €665 for a couple. By comparison, the income disregard applied to Disability Allowance is €140 per week. For Jobseeker's Allowance, it is €20 per day up to a maximum of €60, and the balance is assessed at 60%. For Jobseeker's Transitional Payment, the weekly income disregard is €165 with 50% of the balance assessed as means. A carer may also engage in employment, self-employment (and/or education or training) for a maximum of 18.5 hours per week.

I recently announced measures as part of Budget 2022, which will allow carers to have a higher weekly household income, as well as a higher level of savings, and still qualify for a Carer’s Allowance payment, as follows:

- From next June, the income disregarded in the means test for Carer’s Allowance will increase to €350 for a single person, and to €750 for a couple.

- In addition, the amount of capital disregarded in the means test will be increased from €20,000 to €50,000.

- From January 2022 the maximum weekly rate of Carer's Allowance will also increase by €5 with proportional increases people on reduced rates of payment.

I will continue to keep the range of income supports provided to family carers by this Department under review and will ensure that consultations with carer’s representative groups continue so that the overall objectives of the carer income support schemes provided are met.

In the meantime, I have asked my officials to examine the merits of the proposal outlined by the Deputy.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.