Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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1148. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to outline the decision making process on setting the limit on the length of time a person can work while been in receipt of carer’s allowance or carer’s benefit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57777/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The key role of the Department of Social Protection is to provide income supports where an income need may arise due to, for example, unemployment, illness, disability or caring responsibilities.

The main income supports for family carers provided by my Department 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 €2.2 billion in 2026.

Carer’s Allowance and Carer’s Benefit are payments for people who are providing full-time care to someone who needs significant support due to age, disability or illness, including mental illness. The main objective of these payments is to provide an income support to carers whose ability to earn is substantially reduced because of their full-time caring responsibilities.

To qualify, for Carer's Allowance, Carer's Benefit or the Carer's Support Grant, the carer must provide full-time care and attention to a person who is so incapacitated that they require this level of care for at least 12 months.

A carer is considered to be providing full-time care and attention to a relevant person, where the number of hours providing such care is not less than 35 hours in a period of seven consecutive days, and care is provided on any five days, whether consecutive or not, within a period of seven consecutive days.

While these payments are based on the provision of full-time care and attention by the carer, they do allow carers to engage in training, education or work up to 18.5 hours per week. This threshold was increased from 15 hours as part of Budget 2020 following feedback from carers and carer's organisations who found the 15 hours too restrictive. In effect, this allows carers to participate in these activities for half of a full-time working 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 threshold are contained in the respective legislative provisions of the Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit and Carer’s Support Grant schemes.

In setting the relevant working hours thresholds, it is essential to balance the needs of the carer and the needs of the person receiving care.

I am satisfied that the 18.5-hour rule 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, supporting a carer’s continued connection to the workforce and broader social inclusion.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.