Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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268. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a person in receipt of carer’s allowance (details supplied) who works the allowed 18.5 hours per week in the day time, will be allowed to also engage in part-time online study course at night time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6818/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Government acknowledges the valuable 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 carers provided by the Department of Social Protection 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 €1.9 billion in 2025.

The Carer’s Allowance is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers in the community. There are currently 98,311 people in receipt of Carer's Allowance and expenditure in 2025 is estimated to be over €1.24 billion.

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 a level of 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. 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.

I believe that 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.

Finally, any proposals for further changes to this condition would need to maintain this balance and would have to be considered in a policy and budgetary context.

I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.