Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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798. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the justification for only allowing persons to qualify for half-rate carer’s allowance in instances where they are in receipt of a contributory State pension (details supplied); his views on same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49180/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Carer's Allowance is the main income support scheme for family carers in the community. Normally, under the one payment per person rule, people eligible for multiple social welfare payments typically receive the higher of the available options. This reflects the fact that the payments are intended as an income support that arises due to a specified contingency that eliminates or significantly restricts a person’s ability to earn an income from employment.

However, as an exception to this rule, and in recognition of the important role of caring, where a person is on a full-time social welfare payment, such as State Pension and also caring for 35 hours or more per week, in addition to their primary payment, they can also receive a payment equivalent to up to half the Carer’s Allowance rate. This means that a person currently in receipt of a Carer's Allowance who may have an underlying entitlement to another social welfare payment, such as the State Pension, can transfer to that payment and continue to receive a payment the maximum of which is up to a half-rate Carer's Allowance. This arrangement applies to almost all weekly social welfare payments and to people in receipt of increases for a qualified adult.

Therefore support payments for carers are not cut as they reach pension age, in fact they increase because they can receive both the State Pension and another payment which is equivalent to a half-rate Carer's Allowance paid at a higher rate for over 66s.

In addition to this, carers receiving the Half-rate Carer’s Allowance and the State Pension also benefit from the annual Carer’s Support Grant, which reached its highest level to date at €2,000 in June.

The Programme for Government includes a number of commitments to support carers, including those who are of pension age. These include progressively increasing weekly pension and carer payments and continuing to increase the annual Carer's Support Grant.

These commitments will be advanced over the lifetime of the Government in the overall budgetary and policy context.