Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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94. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he will consider extending the domiciliary care allowance payment beyond the current age limit of 16 years of age, so that it continues until the child reaches 18 years of age; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62167/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Domiciliary Care Allowance is a monthly non-means tested payment to a parent or guardian for a child aged up to 16 who has a severe disability. The child must require care and attention substantially over and above that required by other children their age. Eligibility is not based on the disability or diagnosis, but rather on the impact of the disability in terms of the level of care and attention required by the child.

As part of Budget 2026, the rate of Domiciliary Care Allowance will increase by €20 to €380 per month from January.

As of the end of October 2025, there were 61,753 families in receipt of Domiciliary Care Allowance in respect of 70,131 children. Claims have doubled since 2015.

Domiciliary Care Allowance stops being paid when a child reaches 16 years of age. This aligns with the age of eligibility for Disability Allowance. If the young person continues to have a disability that significantly impacts their daily life, they can then apply for a Disability Allowance payment in their own name. If their parent or guardian continues to provide full-time care they can then retain, or apply for, a carer's payment.

My Department published the Green Paper on Disability Reform in September 2023. One of the key proposals in the Green Paper on Disability Reform was to extend the upper age limit for Domiciliary Care Allowance and the lower age limit for Disability Allowance to 18 years of age. The Green Paper was a consultation document and was withdrawn following feedback from disability stakeholders.

Any future reform of disability or carers payments, including Domiciliary Care Allowance, will be considered in the context of our commitments in the Programme for Government and the recently published National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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95. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he is concerned at the impact the abolition of so-called once off payments in Budget 2026 will have on disabled people who are unable to work; the measures he will take to address this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59243/25]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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143. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he is concerned at the impact that the abolition of the disability support grant in Budget 2026 will have on disabled people; the measures he will take to address this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59242/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 95 and 143 together.

The Government recognises the significant additional costs that disabled people can face in their daily lives and is committed improving outcomes for disabled people by introducing permanent measures.

That is why the Programme for Government commits to introducing a permanent Annual Cost of Disability Support Payment with a view to incrementally increasing this payment. It is also why the last five budgets have progressively increased the weekly payment rates for Disability Allowance by €51 and the earnings disregard increase by almost 38% from €120 to €165 currently.The Government, been very clear that there would be no once-off measures in this Budget. This is the first of this Government’s five Budgets. We are at the start of a five-year programme for Government and not everything can be done in year one.

Nevertheless, Budget 2026 contains significant permanent measures to support people on disability income support payments while also making it easier for people with disabilities to progress into and importantly to stay in employment. These measures include:

• €10 increase in the maximum personal rate of weekly disability payments from January 2026. There will be proportionate increases for people getting reduced rate.
• Increase the weekly rates of the Child Support Payment by €8 per week, to €58, for children under 12 and by €16 per week to €78 for children aged 12 and over.
• Christmas bonus – double week payment in December.
• €5 increase in Fuel Allowance from €33 to €38 per week from January 2026. This will provide an additional €140 during the annual fuel allowance season.
• People moving from Disability Allowance or Blind Pension to take up work from September 2026 will keep their Fuel Allowance for up to 5 years.
• People getting Disability Allowance or Blind Pension who have children will be eligible for Back to Work Family Dividend when taking up employment and moving off those payments.
• Reducing the number of bands in the Wage Subsidy Scheme from six to three and increasing all the rates so that, from April 2026 the base rate will be €7.50 per hour, up from €6.30. Where an employer employs between 7 and 16 employees under the scheme, they will receive a new rate of €8.50. In the case of an employer who has more than 17 employees, the new higher rate will be €10 per hour for each employee.
• Expansion of the Wage Subsidy Scheme to people who acquire a disability while in employment and to those who transfer from Invalidity Pension to Partial Capacity Benefit.
• The Government allocated €3.8 billion to the Department of Children, Disability and Equality for disability services in 2026, including funding for Community Based Specialist Disability Services to ensure people with disabilities receive the right support, at the right time, in the right place. This represents a 20% increase year on year and represents an overall increase since 2020 of €1.8 billion.

• Increase the Earnings Disregard for Carer’s Allowance by €375 to €1,000 for a single person and by €750 to €2,000 for a couple from July 2026.
• The income limit for Carer’s Benefit will increase by €375 to €1,000 per week from July 2026.
• €20 increase in the monthly Domiciliary Care Allowance payment bringing the payment to €380 per month from January.

The payment is available to anyone who needs it and qualifies, whether the person is currently on a social welfare payment or in employment. The payment amount will depend on a person’s weekly household income, their outgoings and the type of assistance needed. Payments are made at the discretion of the Community Welfare Officers administering the scheme, considering all the circumstances of the case.

Any person who considers they may have an entitlement to an additional needs payment is encouraged to contact their local community welfare service.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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96. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if his Department will review the rule whereby older carers lose access to a full carer’s allowance payment when they reach pension age; if he will consider restoring the full payment given the evidence that reducing it to half-rate leads to financial strain and carer burnout in view of the fact that without family care, many of those cared for would require more costly institutional care funded by the State. [60794/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Carer's Allowance is the main income support scheme provided by my department for family carers in the community. It is an income support payment for carers and not a payment for caring. It currently supports over 103,000 carers at an estimated cost in 2026 of over €1.4 billion.

Weekly social welfare payments are intended to address an income need that arises due to a specified contingency that eliminates or significantly restricts a person’s ability to earn an income from employment.

Given that payments are based on a loss of the opportunity to earn an income, it is not the case that experiencing more than one contingency contemporaneously, each of which significantly limits the person’s ability to work, increases that opportunity or income loss, or justifies a double payment to compensate for that loss. Generally, people who are eligible for two social welfare payments at the same time receive the higher payment for which they are eligible – they do not receive both payments simultaneously.

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 the 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 arrangement applies to almost all weekly social welfare payments, including those with increases for a qualified adult.

A person on Carer’s Allowance who qualifies for the full State Pension can, on reaching age 66 in 2025, move from a weekly Carer’s Allowance payment of €260 to a combined pension and carer payment of €438.30 per week.

So, there is no reduction in a person’s payment on moving on to State Pension, rather the person receives an increase with the combined payments.

In addition, such carers also benefit from the annual Carer’s Support Grant, which reached its highest level to date at €2,000 in June.

I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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97. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of first-time applications for domiciliary care allowance that have been received to date in 2025, the number that were refused; the number of those that were appealed or reviewed; the number of those that had their appeal allowed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62179/25]

Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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102. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of applications for domiciliary care allowance received to date in 2025; the number approved; the number rejected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62130/25]

Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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115. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of successful domiciliary care allowance applications for the past three years; the number refused; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62024/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 97, 102 and 115 together.

Domiciliary Care Allowance is a monthly payment for a child with a severe disability. The payment is not based on the type of disability, it is based on the impact of the disability.

Statistics are collated on an overall basis, and are not broken down by first time applications. The total number of claim registered, awarded and disallowed over the last three years, and to the end of September 2025, are shown in Table 1 below. The number of appeals and a breakdown by latest decision is provided in Table 2 below.

Table 1: Domiciliary Care Allowance claims registered, awarded and disallowed, by year

Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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98. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the current average waiting times for decisions on disability allowance and domiciliary care allowance applications, disaggregated by county, in tabular form; the steps being taken to reduce delays for families awaiting essential supports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62165/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the average number of weeks to award a Disability Allowance claim is consistently 6 weeks which is well inside the average target processing time target for the scheme of 10 week. In October 2025, the average weeks to award for a DCA claim was 8 weeks. The Department continues to work hard to ensure we maintain this good outcome.

The Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.

Processing times vary across schemes, depending on the differing eligibility criteria. Schemes that require a high level of documentary evidence from the customer, particularly in the case of illness-related schemes, can take longer to process. Similarly, means-tested schemes can also require more detailed investigations and interaction with the customer, thereby lengthening the decision-making process.

As Disability Allowance (DA) and Domiciliary Care Allowance DCA applications are processed centrally on a date of receipt basis, the above information relating to county is not collated, therefore it is not possible to provide breakdowns of average waiting time by individual county.

To enable the Department to make timely and fair decisions on applications, applicants should ensure that they complete the application form fully and attach all the supporting documentation required as per the checklist provided on the application form. It is particularly important that an applicant provides, at the outset, all the details they have in relation to their medical conditions to best support their claim. This will eliminate the requirement for a Deciding Officer to have to revert to an applicant for clarifications or missing information and reduce the overall processing time.

An online DCA application service was introduced on this year. The quickest and easiest way to apply for Domiciliary Care Allowance is via where the applicant has a verified MyGovID account.

DA and DCA operational processes are continually monitored to ensure that application processing activity is maximised at all times.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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99. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he intends to review the current weekly means limit for the increase for qualified adult allowance for recipients of the State pension, with a view to increasing the current means limit of €100 which has remained unchanged for several years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62134/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides State Pension payments through the State Pension (Contributory), which is a contributory based payment based on a person's social insurance record and the State Pension (Non-Contributory) which is means-tested social assistance payment.

A State pension (contributory) recipient can claim an increase on their pension in respect of a qualified adult where the eligibility conditions for this means-tested payment are satisfied.

An Increase for qualified adult (IQA) is payable at the maximum rate of payment where the means of the qualified adult are not more than €100 per week. Reduced rates are payable where means are over €100 and not more than €310 per week. No increase is payable where means are in excess of €310 per week.

Means tests and income thresholds are kept under regular review and a number of significant changes have been made in recent years. In particular, a number of changes to means testing which provide for higher income disregards have been introduced. These disregards ensure that, where people are in receipt of a means-tested payment from my Department and are working, a certain level of income from that work is not assessed in the means test.

A comprehensive review of means testing in the social protection system is currently under way in my Department. The purpose of the review of means testing is to look at the different means-tested schemes and to identify any issues in terms of the application of the respective means test.

The outcome of the review will inform decisions regarding any potential changes to means testing. All prospective changes to means testing arrangements will have to be considered in both an overall policy and budgetary context.