James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Government is very aware of the valuable work being carried out by family carers. This is evidenced by the extensive measures it has taken to support carers over recent years. The approach to date has been targeted and has involved increases to payment rates in conjunction with earnings disregard increases and targeted cost-of-living lump sum and double payments. This approach was maintained and continued with budget 2025. At €2.6 billion, it is, for the third year in a row, the largest social protection package in the history of the State.

There are two sources of data that provide an estimate of the total number of people providing unpaid care in our society, namely, the census data from 2022 and the Irish health survey 2019, both from the Central Statistics Office. The census data from 2022 showed 299,000 people who self-declared on the census form as providing unpaid care at that time. The Irish health survey from 2019 suggests a higher figure in the order of 517,000, as reported by Family Carers Ireland.

Officials in the Department of Social Protection have estimated the cost of removing the means test for carer's allowance at an additional €600 million a year, based on the current scheme numbers. High-level estimates indicate this figure could increase to €2 billion over time. It is important that we are transparent about costs and about implications for departing from a means-test approach in the social welfare system. Means tests have always been a feature of our social welfare system to ensure resources are targeted at those who need them most. If we were to introduce a universal payment regardless of means, the question needs to be asked as to whether the Department of Social Protection is the appropriate Department to make that payment. What are the knock-on effects? Should disability payments be means-tested? Should jobseeker's payments be means tested?

As mentioned in the opening statement, the outcome of the work of the interdepartmental group and other work regarding broader means testing taking place in the Department of Social Protection will help to inform any future decisions regarding any changes to the carers' payments, including carer's allowance. In regard to other improvements to non-means-tested care payments, as outlined earlier the Minister for Social Protection has placed carers front and centre in her Department's priorities. It is important to acknowledge that there are a range of other supports for carers provided by the Department of Social Protection which are not based on means assessments, such as the carer's support grant, carer's benefit and the domiciliary care allowance. Under her tenure, the Minister has also progressively improved the rates of these payments and widened their accessibility to family carers.

The carer's support grant is a payment for all carers, even those in receipt of carer's allowance. It can be claimed by carers regardless of their means or social insurance contributions. As part of budget 2025, the annual carer's support grant will be increased by €150 to €2,000. The rate of this grant has increased by €300 under this Government and is now at the highest ever rate. Carer's benefit is based on social insurance contributions. It is a very effective payment for people who may be required to leave the workforce or reduce their working hours to care for a person in need of full-time care. It is payable for a period of up to two years for each care recipient and is estimated to have cost almost €58 million this year. In budget 2025 carer's benefit will be made available to the self-employed for the first time. Domiciliary care allowance is payable to a parent or guardian in respect of a child with a severe disability who requires continual or continuous care and attention substantially over and above the care and attention usually required by a child of the same age. From January, the rate will be increased by €20 to €360 per month. This monthly payment has increased cumulatively by €50.50 since January 2023.

I want to touch on this payment briefly as an example of how the Minister for Social Protection has engaged with and listened to carers. She met with the families of very sick children and heard about the financial stresses they are experiencing while their children are undergoing medical treatments. As a result, she made a number of changes to this payment. These include extending the period during which the domiciliary care allowance can be paid for children in hospital from three months to six months. Earlier this year, she also made a change to make the domiciliary care allowance available for babies who remain in an acute hospital after birth for a period of eight months. While these are relatively small changes, they have been significant for the families who are thrust into these difficult situations, particularly those parents of newborn babies who are unable to bring their babies home after they are born.

In regard to the issue of bringing forward the announced changes to carer's allowance income thresholds, which have been raised by various Deputies in their contributions. To be clear, all budget measures have been given specific dates to enable their implementation from a processing and systems perspective and in light of the available budget 2025 envelope. Adjusting means thresholds is more complicated than increasing payment rates, as it requires reviews of an individual claim and adjustments of claims already in payment. For that reason, changes to means thresholds that are announced on budget day usually take place mid-year. This approach was taken this year when the weekly income disregard for carer's allowance increased to €450 for a single person and to €900 for a couple, only five months ago, in June. The Department needs this lead-in time to undertake the required reviews of means and to contact people whose payments might be affected to give them the opportunity to update the means data the Department has for them. It is also worth pointing out that the earlier implementation date suggested would be of no benefit to 96% of carer's allowance recipients who are solely reliant on the payment as their source of income.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The carer's allowance means test should be abolished and Sinn Féin is committed to abolishing it. We have heard lots of messages of support from across this House indicating that the means test should be abolished. Let us be very clear. There will be only one political party going to the electorate with a costed plan to abolish the means test. The reason we are doing that is very simple. It is because the means test is a mean test. It is unfair and it fails to recognise the huge service that carers do for our society.

Our position has come about because of our engagements with parents who care for children and young adults with disabilities. We see that because of this Government's failures in so many areas, these parents become occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and specialists in so many areas that they do the State's job. We meet people who care for their elderly parents and again, they have to become the GP, the support and the bedrock to ensure their parents have full lives. We see people who have to care for their husbands or wives in latter years. They save the State countless millions of euro. In fact, it is estimated that carers save the State in excess of €20 billion a year. Rather than recognising the value carers give to our society and the huge service they do for the State, they are instead forced to go through the ignominy of conducting a means test, where somebody else's income discriminates against their ability to get acknowledgement for the huge amount of work they do. Anybody looking at this logically or compassionately will quickly come to the view that the means test needs to be abolished. That is why Sinn Féin will go forward in the next election with a categoric guarantee that should the people put their faith in us and elect us to lead the next Government, this mean test will be abolished once and for all.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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We might be joined by Deputy Mairéad Farrell. If we are, I will give way.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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That is fine.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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In response to the speeches of the Ministers of State, while I appreciate the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is doing Estimates, it is a pity she was not able to pop in for some of the debate, in particular in relation to the delay in threshold increases. Sinn Féin would have gone a lot further, committing €100 million to significantly increase the thresholds, than the Government did with a commitment of approximately €11 million. It is regrettable that the Government is delaying it until the middle of next year. There is no logical reason for that. That it has done it in the past does not excuse it. It speaks to the feeling carers have that they are constantly expected to wait and at the back of the queue. That is a huge amount of their frustration. We tabled amendments to the social welfare Bill but the restrictions of the charge on the Exchequer meant they would not be taken on board. I regret that the Minister has not listened to what we and other Opposition Deputies outlined.

The other issue the Minister of State raised, which I would have given more time to in my opening contribution, relates the carer's benefit and the potential to make it pay-related. It is a logical proposal. It is not an expensive proposal for the reasons identified and not many people will be more likely to avail of the carer's allowance but for that category people, whether it is 8%, 20%, 10% or whatever it would be in the end, the fact is there are people who end up providing care very suddenly. They will face a cliff edge because there might be two incomes coming into the household, the mortgage and childcare still have to be paid for and there are different outgoings such as education. Those people currently face a cliff edge. A pay-related approach to jobseeker's makes sense; other payments could be examined in that regard as well. It eminently makes sense for carer's benefit given how suddenly it can arise in certain circumstances in which people have to provide care. I will also mention rates. It is not enough simply to abolish the means test, though I will return to that later. The rates have to increase because there are still carers who receive the full rate of the carer's allowance who are on very low incomes and under pressure because of the cost-of-living crisis, because the last few budgets have not kept pace with the cost-of-living crisis and the value of their payment has depreciated. There are carers on the full rate of the carer's allowance who struggle financially.

To return to the means test, as I said, carers do not do this out of any expectation. They do not do it looking for payment or anything like that. They do it out of love, a sense of responsibility and they deserve it for care for their loved ones. They deserve respect and recognition but they deserve support as well. So many carers work the hours - that is crucially important about this payment and debate. The Minister of State asked what about all the other payments. There is no other payment that the Department of Social Protection administers that demands such a level of labour. They are talking about 35 hours and they cannot work more than 18.5 hours outside of the home. It is not the case that just because you get rid of the means test that everyone who provides even a nugatory amount of care will qualify; they still have to be effectively full-time carers. That is still the case. There will still be conditions. The point is that there are people out there who put in the hours providing care for their loved ones and get nothing at all or very little. I have heard of instances of €2, €5 and €8. Not only is that not right, it is not wise and is not strategically sensible. We look across the world and hear about the crisis of social care in many instances. We are fortunate in Ireland to have such a strong network of family careers. We should do everything in our power and take every opportunity to reinforce and buttress that to ensure families who care for their loved ones at home are in a position to do so in a way that is financially sustainable and sustainable in every way. There are families who make the decision that it is just not possible for them for financial and other reasons. We need to reinforce that and say to carers we have their backs and that we will give them what they need to ensure that if they care for their loved ones at home, we will back them. There are other issues in relation to respite and other areas of support for carers on which the system falls down profoundly but in this area, it is not that we cannot afford to do it; we cannot afford not to do it.

Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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I am sure the Aire Stáit and his Government colleagues agree that the work carers do is extremely important and that carers deserve to be recognised for that work and supported in return. It is work done with love to allow our family members, friends, neighbours and members of our community who need care to continue to live at home and remain in their communities. It is work done by carers who do not get the weekend off, workers who do not get to switch off at the end of their shift. It is work that saves the State billions of euro. It is work, and it deserves to be compensated without forcing carers to jump through the administration hoops of means testing. Carers deserve to know their payment will not be cut suddenly if their partner's income tips them over the edge. People deserve to make the decision to offer care to a loved one without worrying if that decision will be financially disastrous for the family. It is work that happens all of a sudden. All of a sudden, a family member can need support and to be cared for. They need to be able to do that and to be supported by the State. That is why it is so important to abolish the means test.

Tá mé cinnte go n-aontaíonn an tAire go bhfuil obair na gcúramóirí baile fíorthábhachtach agus go bhfuil aitheantas agus tacaíocht tuillte acu mar gheall air sin. Is obair í atá déanta le grá ionas go bhféadfadh na daoine inár bpobail, is iad sin, ár muintir, ár gcairde agus ár gcomharsana, fanacht sa bhaile agus ina bpobail féin. Ní bhfaigheann na daoine a dhéanann an obair seo an deireadh seachtaine saor agus ní féidir leo imeacht ón obair agus an obair sin a fhágáil san obair. Tá sí 24 uair a chloig, seacht lá in aghaidh na seachtaine. Is obair í a shábhálainn an Stát seo na billiún euro.

Is obair fiúntach í. Tá obair iontach á déanamh ag na cúramóirí baile seo ach teastaíonn an tacaíocht uathu. Déanfaidh an tástáil acmhainne seo i bhfad níos deacra an tacaíocht sin a fháil. Is é sin an fáth go bhfuil muid ag rá go soiléir go gcaithfear fáil réidh leis.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I want to take this opportunity - it might be the last time I am in the Chair - to thank the Ceann Comhairle for his great work over the past number of years.

He has been a tremendous Ceann Comhairle, has done a tremendous job and has been fair to everybody in the House. I want to put that on the record.

I also compliment the Ceann Comhairle's wonderful staff. The House would not run without their courtesy and efficiency. I thank them for the way they run the business.

I welcome to the Gallery Evan Lynch Boyd and his father Eamon. I hope they have a very enjoyable day in the Dáil. I look forward to taking them around later.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I want to be associated with those remarks.