Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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612. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to consider introducing a system whereby people on the carer's allowance can sign off on various weeks, like the system with jobseeker's payments whereby people can mark (X and O) on days they were working so that they do not claim, in view of the fact that people sometimes may get work while on carer's allowance, it may extend beyond the 18.5 hours and they want to not be paid the carer's allowance on that particular week; if there is a simple system that can be introduced to facilitate this both from the Department's point of view and the carer's point of view, where this can occur in some situations and thereby reduce the amount of debts that can build up on people on carer's allowance, which will cause a difficulty in being paid to the Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25570/25]

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 the Programme for Government.

Carer’s Allowance is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers in the community. There are currently 99,421 people in receipt of this payment with expenditure in 2025 estimated to be over €1.24 billion.

The Deputy is suggesting the introduction of a form of Carer’s Allowance casual akin to Jobseeker’s Allowance. It is possible to receive Jobseeker’s Allowance while working part-time and make a Weekly Jobseeker' Declaration; however this is based on the premise that the person is actively seeking full-time employment. Such an arrangement would not align with the full-time care and attention requirement of the Carer’s Allowance scheme.

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 income support payments are premised on the provision of full-time care and attention, they also provide flexibility in terms of allowing carers to engage in work, training or education for 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.

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 employment or education and training, 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.

However, if a carer wished to engage in a level of employment above 18.5 hours per week, they would no longer meet the qualifying criteria for Carer’s Allowance. Such a change in circumstances should be notified to the Department immediately. The quickest way of informing the Department of a change in circumstances is via MyWelfare, by selecting the ‘Manage my Claim’ option.

I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.