Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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217. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the annual cost to the Exchequer of expanding the eligibility of the carer's benefit to include self-employed people; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37183/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Self-employed workers whose income is €5,000 or more in a contribution year are liable to pay social insurance contributions at the PRSI class S rate of 4%, subject to a minimum annual payment of €500. Such contributors are currently covered for a wide range of social insurance benefits including State pension (contributory), widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner's pension (contributory), guardian’s payment (contributory), maternity, adoptive and paternity benefits, treatment benefits, invalidity pension, partial capacity benefit (if in receipt of invalidity pension), jobseeker’s benefit (self-employed) and parent’s benefit.

The issue of extending additional social insurance benefits to self-employed persons paying class S social insurance contributions was considered in the Actuarial Review of the Social Insurance Fund, conducted by independent consultants and published in March 2023.

The Review indicated that if access to carer's benefit was extended to self-employed contributors, the cost to the Social Insurance Fund in 2024 would be approximately €7.1 million, increasing annually thereafter.

It should be noted that there has been an extensive expansion of access to the range of social insurance benefits by 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 the combined employer and employee contribution of 15.05% made in respect of employed contributors, have access to benefits which comprise over 90% of the value of all benefits available to employed contributors.

Any change to the entitlements of self-employed contributors could only be considered in a wider budgetary context, including the associated contribution rates.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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218. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the annual cost to the Exchequer of extending the 18.5-hour ceiling for people in receipt of the carer's allowance who want to undertake training or education while providing full-time care by 1.5 hours, by 3 hours, by 4.5 hours, by 6 hours, by 7.5 hours, and by 9 hours, in tabular form. [37184/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My department provides a comprehensive package of carers’ income supports including Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance and the Carer’s Support Grant. At the end of August, there were 97,407 people in receipt of Carer's Allowance. Combined spending on all these payments to carers in 2024 is expected to exceed €1.7 billion.

Carer’s Allowance is the main scheme by which the department provides income support to carers in the community. Carer’s Allowance is a means tested social assistance payment awarded to those carers who are caring for certain people who require full-time care and attention. The means test is used to target the support to those most in need.

The primary objective of the payment is to provide an income support to carers whose earning capacity is substantially reduced as a consequence of their caring responsibilities and, in so doing, to support the ongoing care of the person in respect of whom care is being provided.

A primary qualifying condition for the carer income supports provided, is that the applicant provides full-time care and attention to a person in need of such care. The person being cared for must be so incapacitated as to require full-time care and attention and be likely to require this full-time care and attention for at least 12 months. The time spent providing care must not be less than 35 hours per week.

While carer support payments are premised on the provision of full-time care and attention by the carer, they also provide flexibility in terms of allowing carers to engage in work, training or education up to 18.5 hours per week. This was increased from 15 hours as part of Budget 2020. During this time, adequate provision must be made for the care of the relevant person.

Both the full-time care and attention requirement and the 18.5-hour limitation are contained in the respective legislative provisions of the Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit and Carer’s Support Grant schemes.

The 18.5-hour limitation represents a reasonable balance between meeting the requirement for providing full-time care for the care recipient and the needs of the carer to engage in education, training or employment, thereby supporting a carer’s continued attachment to the workforce and broader social inclusion. In effect, a carer can engage in these activities for half of a full-time working week.

The main cost elements of a proposal to increase the threshold would arise from new claimants who are not currently eligible and who do not apply for the allowance because of the 18.5 hours condition. It is not known to the Department the number of people engaged in education or training who could become eligible as a consequence of increasing the hours threshold, as outlined by the Deputy, and therefore an estimate of the costs can not be provided.

Finally, any changes to the eligibility conditions for any of the carer related statutory schemes operated by my department would need to be addressed in an overall policy and budgetary context.

I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.