Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Government acknowledges the valuable role that family carers play and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. This commitment is recognised in both the Programme for Government and the National Carers’ Strategy.

The main income supports to carers provided by my department include Carer's Allowance, Carer's Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance, and the Carer's Support Grant. Spending on these payments in 2024 is expected to exceed €1.7 billion.

The Carer’s Allowance is the main scheme by which the department provides income support to carers in the community. At end of June, there were 97,127 people in receipt of Carer's Allowance and the estimated spend on this payment in 2024 is over €1.1 billion.

The primary objective of the payment is to provide an income support to carers whose earning capacity is substantially reduced as a consequence of their caring responsibilities and in so doing to support the ongoing care of the person in respect of whom care is being provided. Eligibility for Carer’s Allowance is not contingent on a particular disability or illness, the severity of disability or the age of the person being cared for.

The two principal conditions for receipt of Carer’s Allowance are that full time care and attention is required and provided, and that a means test is satisfied.

As set out in primary legislation, the person being cared for must be so incapacitated as to require full-time care and attention and be likely to require this full-time care and attention for at least 12 months. Full-time care and attention is defined as not less than 35 hours per week to a person in need of such care.

The payment continues to be made as long as both the carer and the care recipient satisfy the conditions for the scheme. The average duration on the Carer’s Allowance payment for those currently in payment just over 7 years.

With regard to those carers providing care for an extended period, I was very pleased that legislation to give effect to a number of important State Pension reforms was enacted last December. A key measure introduced under this legislation is enhanced State Pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependents for over 20 years. This reform was part of the Pensions Commission’s recommendations and is based on the recognition that someone caring for this period of time will face greater challenges in building up the eligibility criteria of 520 paid contributions required to qualify for State Pension (Contributory).

Since January 2024, long-term carers contributions can be awarded to a person who has cared for an incapacitated person for a period of 20 years (1040 weeks) and these contributions can be used towards the calculation of their State Pension (Contributory) entitlement. This is done by attributing the equivalent of a paid contribution to long-term carers of incapacitated dependents to cover gaps in their contribution record. These long-term carers contributions will be treated the same as paid contributions for State Pension (Contributory) entitlement only and can, where there are gaps in paid contributions, be used to satisfy the minimum 520 qualifying contributions condition.

For those people who have been caring for less than 20 years, they will continue to have access to the existing State Pension (Contributory) provisions of Homemaking Disregards and Homecaring periods, which provide for recognition of caring up to a maximum of 20 years, once that person has met the minimum requirement of 520 paid contributions.

I trust that this clarifies the issue for the Deputy.