Vol. 439 No. 5
84 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Social Welfare if his attention has been drawn to the fact that persons giving full-time care to a seriously ill person who is in receipt of widow's pension cannot apply for carer's allowance; and if he will take action to correct this anomaly.
The carer's allowance which I introduced in 1990, provides for the first time a direct payment, on a means tested basis, to people who are providing full-time care and attention to elderly and incapacitated pensioners. A carer's allowance may be payable where the person being cared for is in receipt of a widow's pension and is 66 years of age or over.
In 1991, I extended the carer's allowance to people caring for recipients of disabled person's maintenance allowance. The question of extending the allowance to other categories, such as people caring for the recipients of widow's pension under 66 years of age, would have to be considered in a budgetary context.
85 Mr. Sheehan asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason the same conditions do not apply to the period of unemployment that applies to the FÁS enterprise allowance scheme as apply to the 12 month period of unemployment which applies in the case of the back to work allowance scheme; his views on whether applicants for the latter scheme seem to be penalised in comparison with applicants for this former scheme.
The back to work allowance was introduced in October 1993. Under the scheme, unemployed people—who have been out of the work force for 12 months or longer and lone parents can continue to get 75 per cent of their weekly social welfare payments for one year and 50 per cent of their payments for a second year in addition to their secondary benefits, while exploring the potential of employment in indigenous industries or while setting up self-employment ventures.
