Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The main income supports to carers provided by my department are Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance and the Carer’s Support Grant. Spending on these payments is expected to amount to over €1.7 billion this year.

Carer's Benefit is available to people who leave the workforce or reduce their working hours to care for a child or an adult in need of full-time care and attention. It is payable for a period of 2 years (104 weeks) for each care recipient and may be claimed over separate periods up to a total of 2 years (104 weeks).

Only Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) contributions paid at classes A, B, C, D, E and H are counted towards Carer's Benefit. Contributions paid at class S (self-employed contributions) do not count.

Where a carer cannot satisfy the PRSI conditions attached to the Carer's Benefit payment, application for the non-means tested payment of Carer's Allowance is available.

Self-employed workers whose income is €5,000 or more in a contribution year, are liable to pay social insurance contributions at the class S rate of 4%, subject to a minimum annual payment of €500. Where all qualification criteria for the particular scheme are satisfied, this class of PRSI gives access to the following benefits:

• Adoptive Benefit,
• Guardian's Payment (Contributory),
• Invalidity Pension,
• Jobseeker's Benefit (Self-Employed),
• Maternity Benefit,
• Parent's Benefit,
• Partial Capacity Benefit (where in receipt of Invalidity Pension),
• Paternity Benefit,
• State Pension (Contributory),
• Treatment Benefit, and
• Widows, Widower's or Surviving Civil Partner's (Contributory) Pension.

There has been an extensive expansion of access to the range of social insurance benefits for self-employed social insurance contributors in recent years without any increase in the 4% rate of contribution made by them. In effect, self-employed contributors, in return for a contribution of 11 percentage points lower than for employed contributors, have access to benefits which comprise over 90% of the value of all benefits available to employed contributors.

Any changes in access to additional schemes, including Carer's Benefit, for self-employed contributors would need to be considered in an overall policy and budgetary context, including the appropriate contribution rates.

I trust this clarifies the matter.