Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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100. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the total number of persons who applied for the carer's allowance in each of the past ten years and to date in 2022. [58970/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department provides a range of supports to carers, one of which is Carer's Allowance. These payments support individuals who provide care to people in need of full-time care and attention. Carer's Allowance (CA) is a means-tested payment, made to a person who is habitually resident in the State and providing full-time care and attention to a child or an adult who has such a disability that they require that level of care.

There are 91,954 people currently in receipt of CA. The number of people in receipt of CA has increased by 78% in the past decade, from 51,550 in 2012.

The number of CA claims registered in 2021 increased by 27% since 2012, from 15,493 in 2012 to 19,648 in 2021. In the 10 months to 31st October 2022, 19,313 new CA applications have been received.

The number of CA claims received in each of the last ten years are provided in a table beneath.

Table: Number of CA claims registered, by year