Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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651. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the cost of increasing the carer’s allowance weekly travel disregard by €1. [39263/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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. In 2025, total spending on these payments is expected to exceed over €1.9 billion.

The Carer’s Allowance scheme is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers in the community. In 2025 the expenditure on the Carer’s Allowance scheme is estimated to be over €1.2 billion and there are currently 100,853 recipients of Carer’s Allowance.

In relation to the costing requested by the Deputy, I regret that it is not possible to provide specific costing at this time. However, any increase in the rate of the travel allowance would not affect those already in receipt of a full-rate payment.

Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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652. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the cost of increasing the income disregards for the Jobseeker’s transitional payment by €1. [39264/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Jobseeker's Transitional Payment is a means tested payment for lone parents, under 66, whose youngest child is aged between seven and their fourteenth birthday.

The earnings disregard for the Jobseeker's Transitional Payment is €165 per week. In addition, 50% of earnings above this figure is also disregarded in the assessment of means.

Increasing the disregards by €1, to €166 per week, would result in a very small change to the lone parent’s personal rate of payment, for example every recipient with income from employment would see an increase for €.50 in their personal rate of payment. There are currently 18,617 recipients of the Jobseeker's Transitional Payment, with an estimated 42% of those in employment earning greater than the current threshold of €165.

Based on these figures to increase the earnings disregard by €1 would give an annual cost of €203,730. Note that the number of people in receipt of Jobseekers Transitional Payment varies over time, as does their employment earnings. Hence the actual cost could be greater or less than this number.

The payment rate for all schemes are published in the SW19 booklet ‘Social Welfare Rates of Payment 2025’, which is available on Gov.ie.

The above estimated costing does not take account of any equivalent increase in the One Parent Family Payment disregard.

I trust this clarifies the position.