I call the first speaker from the Independent Group. Deputy Canney has four minutes. I am sorry, it is the Regional Group. There are so many groups it is hard to keep a thumb on you all. Deputy Canney might move the motion.
Support for Carers: Motion [Private Members]
I move:
That Dáil Éireann:
recognises that:
— more than 500,000 individuals are family carers, which means one in eight people in Ireland provide regular unpaid care;
— family carers are the backbone of care provision in Ireland, however they often lack support and recognition;
— caring intensively over a long period without support or recognition negatively affects a carer's physical and mental health, financial status, and social integration;
— for many carers who care for a child with additional needs their caring role is likely to last for many years, even decades, which has serious implications for their long-term health, wellbeing, and financial security;
— carers are predominately women, with people aged in their 50s most likely providing care;
— 57 per cent of carers enumerated in Census 2022 are juggling work with caring responsibilities;
— the number of carers increased by over 50 per cent between 2016 and 2022, and is expected to continue to increase significantly due to population ageing and an increase in the number of people living with life-limiting conditions; and
— according to the Working Paper of Family Carers Ireland entitled "Counting Carers: Carer Prevalence in Ireland" carers save the State billions of euro each year, therefore socially valuing care is essential;
notes that:
— the application of the current Carer's Allowance means test on household income can make the carer financially vulnerable by making them financially dependent on their partner's income;
— 129,702 carers caring for 146,046 care recipients received the Carer's Support Grant in 2023;
— only 95,848 carers caring for 107,598 care recipients receive Carer's Allowance;
— of those in receipt of Carer's Allowance 44,651 carers receive half-rate Carer's Allowance;
— 3,911 carers caring for 4,521 care recipients receive Carer's Benefit;
— 6,481 full-time carers received the Carer's Support Grant as a stand-alone payment in 2023 as they do not satisfy the Carer's Allowance means test; this means the annual grant is the only recognition they receive from the State; and
— according to the report entitled "The State of Caring 2022":
— 27 per cent of family carers surveyed are caring for two or more people;
— 70 per cent of family carers surveyed report difficulty accessing services for at least one of the people they care for; and
— 80 per cent of family carers surveyed feel the value of what they do is not recognised by society; and
calls on the Government to:
— fully abolish the Carer's Allowance means test, as reflected in the research published by the National University of Ireland Maynooth entitled "Towards a Participation Income for Family Carers" which was commissioned by Family Carers Ireland; and
— implement the unanimous recommendation of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands' Pre-Budget Submission of July 2023 to establish a high-level officials' group to scope out and develop a roadmap for the delivery of a non-means tested Participation Income for Family Carers thereby abolishing the means test completely by 2027.
On behalf of the Regional Group, I thank Ms Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh for all the work she put into this. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is here deputising for the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. I must say, however, that we are disappointed in the fact that she is not here herself, not so much for us but for the fact that there are so many carers in Ireland who are looking forward to something happening. It would be remiss of me to say that we are disappointed on their behalf that she is not here to actually talk to us and see where we are going with this particular motion.
The motion we have put forward is to abolish the carer's allowance means test. It is very simple. A number of people in this country - more than 500,000 individuals - are family carers, which means that one in eight people in Ireland provide regular unpaid care. Every TD in this House has come across this in his or her constituency office or through representations. A person who is caring for somebody in his or her home gets a letter to review his or her carer's allowance and, all of a sudden, that person's income drops. Most of the time, it drops because the person's husband, wife or partner is earning money. The person who is providing the care still has to provide the care and is reliant on his or her partner, husband or wife for income support.
It is an absolutely incredible indictment of our system that we allow this to continue. We have met parents, as I am sure the Minister of State and every other TD have, who have been caring over a long period, who have given up work when a child is born with a condition that needs full-time care. Mothers and fathers forfeit their careers and income and dedicate their lives to caring for their loved one. However, the State does not recognise that care. It gives them a carer's allowance that is means tested. We recognise that the means test thresholds were increased in the budget but they do not go far enough. We need to get rid of the means test for carers. That is the absolute bottom line on this matter.
People will ask about the cost. Family Carers Ireland carried out research into this with Maynooth University which determined, as did the Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO, in the Oireachtas, that the cost of abolishing the means test is approximately €280 million in any year, while the benefit carers provide is worth approximately €20 billion per year. This is a no-brainer. If we do not start the process now, we will be talking about it again in ten years' time. The important thing is that dedicated carers have been penalised and have not been recognised by successive governments. They have been denied a State pension because they did not contribute. They have been taxed for providing a service, because carer's allowance is taxable income. They are discouraged from working for more than 18.5 hours per week and are required to provide 35 hours of care for approximately €6 per hour at the basic social welfare rate. They are often forced to give up work because they have to provide care full time. They incur additional costs in providing that care. The Indecon report stated that the cost of living with a disability is between €8,000 and €12,000 per annum, and often the carer bears the brunt of that.
At the end of the day, carers are getting fed up with this. I have a case of a woman who has been caring for her son for 28 years and her carer's allowance has been cut because her husband decided to try to earn a little additional money for the family.
I thank Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh for all the work she did in putting this motion together.
We continually hear praise being lavished on people who act as full-time carers for others. They are often described as heroes, and rightly so. However, the motion we are discussing today is an attempt to go further and do something concrete for the people who look after the most vulnerable in our society.
It is not right that families should struggle to pay their bills because even a relatively modest household income makes them fail a means test and disqualifies them from getting a carer's allowance. There are huge additional costs in looking after someone with a disability, which increase in line with the severity of the disability. Thousands can be spent on essential equipment, disability aids, transport and medical care. Family Carers Ireland, in its most recent state of caring report, showed the extent of that struggle, with two thirds of carers experiencing financial distress. Some 13% of carers are in arrears on rent or mortgages and 16% are in arrears on their bills, which is twice the rate in the rest of the population. Research carried out for Social Justice Ireland two years ago found that additional costs of almost €250 per week were incurred by householders who look after a child with a profound disability. The massive increases in the cost of living since then will have put the total additional outgoings of these families well above that figure. I am sure most Members of this House will have come across difficult cases, such as when one parent is a full-time carer for a child with a severe disability but does not qualify for the carer's allowance because the partner's income is just above the qualification threshold.
While the report puts the number of carers at half a million, it also predicts that by the end of this decade, one in five people will be a carer. Census figures show that the proportion of the population who provide regular unpaid care is highest in the western counties, at almost 7%, in Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Leitrim. They are doing a job that would otherwise fall on the State at a huge cost to the Exchequer. We need to recognise that in a concrete way.
I welcome the measures introduced in January of this year which allow people who have been full-time carers for almost 20 years to qualify for a contributory State pension when they reach retirement age, but it should not be restricted to those who have spent more than two decades caring for a child with a disability or other loved one. Parents could be in the role of a full-time carer for 19 years and not be able to get credits towards a pension through normal employment. Why should they or any parent who is not in the workforce for five years not have that time credited to them in pension contributions?
The Family Carers Ireland report I mentioned found that 71% of carers felt left out of the society and a shocking nine out of ten of them felt the value of what they do is not recognised by the State. Too many struggle with loneliness, exhaustion and getting access to respite care. Now is the time to turn that around and show these wonderful people they are very valued members of our society and to recognise that by taking away at least one of the barriers that is having an impact on their lives. We need to remove the means test for the carer's allowance and establish a proper income that recognises the value of what they do.
Becoming a family carer can happen at any stage in life. It comes about as a result of need. It is undertaken as a result of love. While need and love are the driving forces behind one family member undertaking to attend to the needs of another, the long-term reality of what is involved can prove to be daunting. Neither the need nor the love diminish as time moves on. Until people stand in the shoes of a family carer, they can never hope to fully understand the reality of what it entails.
Some 500,000 people in the country are caring for a family member, of which 10,000 live in Tipperary. They could be parents caring for a child with a serious illness or disability. They could be caring for an adult with complex needs. Perhaps they are looking after an older person. In some cases, they may be caring for multiple people. Either way, carers commit their lives to looking after the needs of family members who are unable to fully care for themselves. Attending to the needs of dependent people is without doubt one of the most fulfilling and worthy roles people can undertake, yet it is also one of the hardest. They seldom know for certain what each day will bring. The vast majority have no preparation or training for the role. Many have put their lives on hold to provide care for a loved one. It is a full-time responsibility, often both day and night. There is no start or finish time. There are no breaks and there is never any certainty as to what a day will hold. Without reliable backup, many cannot leave the home to work, shop or even enjoy any form of social activity. The role of family carers is 24-7. Even if they get a much-needed break, their minds are in a cycle of niggling worries.
Despite all this and more, the Government at some point in the past decided that carer's allowance should be means tested and that the income of another family member in the home can determine the payment carers receive for the incalculable contribution they make in caring for a family member. That their value would be weighed against the income of another person is outlandish, unfair, unjust, indefensible and downright wrong. I raised the issue of family carers directly with the Taoiseach in discussions a number of weeks ago and at Leaders' Questions last week.
I was told by the Minister for Social Protection that they have increased the income threshold for carers with effect from June. I welcome that. From that time a couple will be able to earn €900 per week and have €50,000 in savings yet still qualify for the full carer’s allowance. The reality and fact is that this is still a form of means testing. It continues to take the income of another family member into account when calculating the allowance paid to a family carer. It continues to undermine the invaluable work they do and this is still wrong.
Every family carer in this country saves the State an enormous amount of money. Their tireless work and total dedication save the Exchequer a staggering €20 billion per year. The newly established interdepartmental working group tasked with looking at the means testing of payments to family carers should look closely at this figure before it compiles a report because the facts speak for themselves. None of us knows what the future holds. Any one of us could require care at some time in the future. If we are lucky enough to have a family member willing to care for us to enable us to remain in our homes for as long as possible, I wonder what value we would place on that care. What would the work of that person be worth to us? The answer to that question is simple. It would be priceless.
One in eight people in Ireland currently provides unpaid care. First, I thank the Regional Group, and especially Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh, for their work in producing this motion. I thank them for all of the work that they have done with the organisations that represent carers in this country.
It is an incredible that one in eight people is tasked with this particular role. It is tremendous work. It is really important work. The care they provide is borne out of love for their families. It is really important that we recognise that work not just through words but through support as well. We cannot just be an Oireachtas that claps people. We have to be an Oireachtas that really values people by putting our money where our mouth is as well.
Care work can be seriously arduous. For the many people involved in care, such work can be very physically difficult. It can be emotionally very difficult. It can be 24-7 work, meaning that people get very little respite in terms of the work that they do. In actual fact, in terms of work per hour there are very few comparable roles within society. It is obviously the case that the people who do this work do it out of love, first and foremost, but there are associated costs too. There is an opportunity cost in terms of the incomes carers could earn elsewhere in society. There is a financial cost. There is also the dependency that it creates because many of these carers are women. As a result of the system, they become dependent on their partners' income in regard to their work. That leads to a significant vulnerability as well.
It is important to recognise that this work saves the State billions of euro on an annual basis. If we look at our trajectory, Ireland is becoming an older country. We will have more carers in the future because more people will be in need of care and the State will make further savings in relation to it.
A number of weeks ago the State spent €20 million on a referendum that the Government said it wanted to use to improve the lives of carers. During that referendum the Government said it would be a new dawn in terms of the support that would be given to carers. One would think in that referendum that the Government had become activists on behalf of carers throughout the country. Unfortunately, since the referendum the zeal of the Government, in terms of its support of carers, seems to have disappeared completely. We still see child care facilities closing on a weekly basis. We see nursing homes closing around the country. We still see children being put into unregulated care with unvetted staff, and dozens of these children go missing on a monthly basis. In some cases, according to UCD research, some of those children are being exploited by criminal gangs as well. It is an incredible situation. There has been no change in that.
It appears that a lot of the words of the Government during the referendum were empty hollow husks in terms of this matter. Ireland, unfortunately, provides welfare and supports on a basis of a cliff. If one goes beyond a certain income, one falls off that cliff significantly. That cliff does not take into consideration the economic costs and challenges that those people have. This motion seeks to give not just words but also financial supports to those who need them. My worry is that the Government is going to offer platitudes in response to the motion. It might not even vote against this motion. It will hope that this motion disappears into the background and that people forget about it in the next while. We will not forget about it.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. From the outset I acknowledge the role of Deputy Verona Murphy, who had the initiative to come up with this concept in the first place. Deputy Denis Naughten and our group administrator, Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh, put the meat on the bones of this motion. Family Carers Ireland advised us throughout the entire process. I can be 100% sure, as I am sure the Minister of State is, that every word in this motion has massive relevance, is really important and been optimised over the last number of weeks.
I welcome the Geoghegan family to the Public Gallery. Anne, Aidan and their daughter, Rachel, have travelled from Portarlington this morning to bear witness to this debate. This is an indication of the importance of the debate. They are very welcome here. Rachel, who is 22 years old, has been in a wheelchair all her life and is completely non-verbal. In a way, we are here speaking on her behalf. I very much hope we do her justice because that is exactly why her family are here. They are here to look for justice. If Rachel could speak, I suspect she would first acknowledge the very small improvements that have occurred over the last six months. There have been improvements, as Deputy Grealish outlined, from a pension point of view and from the income threshold perspective but much more needs to be done. She would remind the Minister of State that it is the State's obligation to look after her and that her parents, who are also her carers, pick up the lion's share of that obligation. She would ask the Minister of State to ensure the Government meets carers halfway, at the very least, and to improve the lot of carers across this country. This morning, we are representing not just the Geoghegan family but also the half a million carers across the country who cannot be here today. Why are they not here? It is primarily because they are caring for loved ones in their homes.
From a justice perspective, if we want to address the injustice out there, the pension anomaly is an area that needs work. It is completely incomprehensible that most carers are only on about €12 more than the average social welfare payment for doing a 35-hour week. There is plenty of opportunity to fix that over the next few months.
Next is the means test. Deputy Denis Naughten summed it up best in a recent social media post when he described the means test as a "mean test", which is what it is when one considers the contribution that carers are making across the country.
The second last point I want to make is about the gender aspects to caring. I am sure the Minister of State is well aware that the vast majority of carers are women. It is completely unfair that there is a joint assessment done, to which some of my colleagues have referred. We should never assume that a wife has equal or even partial access to a husband's salary. To peg a wife's income to her husband's income makes absolutely no sense to me. We need to work on that from a moral point of view as well as from a financial perspective.
Finally, from an implementation point of view, we are all rational and reasonable people here so we recognise that lots of things are much easier said than done. That is why this motion contains an implementation piece. There is a three-year time horizon or three-year window but we emphasise that it needs to be front-loaded. There is only one budget left in the lifetime of this Dáil and it is a golden opportunity for the Government to put a downpayment on that.
Hear, hear.
A downpayment would prove that the Government is serious and has intent and would show that carers around the country will finally be recognised rather than penalised. The mantra that has come back to us over the last number of weeks is that carers feel they have been penalised rather than recognised. The speech that the Minister of State will make here and the budget in a few months' time are golden opportunities to right that wrong.
The Minister of State has ten minutes.
At the outset I want to pass on the apologies of the Minister for Social Protection who cannot be here to take this debate as she had a long-standing commitment. The Minister is not opposing the motion put forward by the Deputies. I welcome this opportunity to discuss the important issue of supporting our family carers.
I thank the Regional Group of Deputies who brought forward this motion. I think this is a timely discussion. As the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people, I regularly engage with Family Carers Ireland. I will touch a little bit on the work I have been doing for carers later in my speech. Any opportunity to raise caring on the floor of the Dáil Chamber is really important.
I am conscious that some people are dual carers and may be caring for a child with an additional need as well as elderly parents. That is an area on which there is not a lot of focus but many people may end up playing a dual caring role.
Next month, the Department of Social Protection will host the annual carers forum as part of its commitment under the national carers strategy. Every year, the Minister for Social Protection engages directly with carers' organisations and family carers at the event. A number of initiatives and improvements have been a direct result of her engagement with carers at this forum. On a personal level, I know that the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has sought to prioritise carers in recent budgets. In budget 2021, her first budget in the Department of Social Protection, the Minister increased the carer's support grant to €1,850, its highest ever level. She has also delivered on the programme for Government commitment to provide a pension solution for long-term carers, which has been welcomed by Deputies.
From January 2024, a new long-term carers contribution scheme was introduced. This significant reform enables long-term carers who have been caring for 20 years or more to qualify for the State contributory pension. We know this reform is a great comfort and relief to the many carers across the country who have spent their lives caring for loved ones, including, in particular, the many mothers who have had to give up their jobs or who have been unable to work to allow them to care for severely disabled children into their adulthood and who have found themselves coming into what we regard as their retirement years without any income. This year alone, the Department of Social Protection will spend €1.7 billion on payments such as carer's allowance, carer's benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the carer's support grant. It is important to point out that more people are now qualifying for the carer's allowance payment than ever before. In fact, there has been an increase of over 50% in the number of people receiving carer's allowance since 2015, with 96,400 people currently supported by the payment.
As Deputies are aware, carer's allowance is a means-tested payment. There had been no changes to the carer's allowance means test in the 14 years prior to the appointment of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. She has made it a priority in recent budgets with significant enhancements to the means test. She deeply valued the work and recommendations of the Joint Committee on Social Protection when making those changes. The net effect of the changes will mean that from June 2024, a couple can have earnings of €900 per week and €50,000 in savings and still qualify for the full carer's allowance payment. These changes to the means test will help more carers to qualify for a payment. While carer's allowance now has the highest income disregards in the social welfare system, the Minister is conscious that no matter where the line is drawn on the means test, some families will fall on the wrong side.
This motion calls for a high-level officials group to examine the abolition of the carer's allowance means test. I am pleased to inform Deputies that the Minister has recently announced the establishment of an interdepartmental working group to examine and review the system of means testing for carers' payments. The group will be chaired and resourced by officials in the Department of Social Protection and will include representation from the Departments of Health and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, which are the lead Departments with responsibility for the delivery of supports and services for older people and people with disabilities. This is important because responsibility for caring does not only lie in one Department but requires a cross-departmental approach.
The work of the interdepartmental working group will be informed by a broader review of means test being carried out by the Department of Social Protection, which includes the carer's allowance means test provisions; work being carried out by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth under the Action Plan for Disability Services 2024-2026 to increase family resilience and provide extra support for carers and their families; and the national carer's strategy, led by the Department of Health, which is designed around a core vision of recognising, empowering and supporting family carers.
The programme for Government commits to delivering a carer's guarantee to provide a core basket of services to carers across the country regardless of where they live. This comes under my own budget. Since budget 2021, €2 million has been provided under the national carer's strategy with a view to improving equity of access to supports for carers across the country. The funding contributes substantially towards delivering the carer's guarantee, providing a more standard package of supports for family carers in every region in tandem with the community and the voluntary sector. Some €1.9 million of that funding is being channelled through Family Carers Ireland while the remaining €100,000 is to support the development and delivery of online supports for family carers through Care Alliance Ireland by means of an online support group. The €1.9 million allocation to Family Carers Ireland aims to improve access to carer supports across the country. The funding has enabled Family Carers Ireland to significantly upscale its support provision using a public health approach of universal, targeted and intensive interventions. Under a service level agreement with the HSE, Family Carers Ireland is providing supports across five areas of activity, including community carer supports and intensive and emergency supports. Family Carers Ireland has called for an additional investment of €3.1 million to complete the carer's guarantee. The Department of Health has undertaken to consider the carer's guarantee request in the context of the Estimates and the budgetary process. I will certainly be putting an emphasis on that for next year's budget.
While I understand that the report referred to in the motion estimates that abolishing the means test will cost an additional €397 million per year, I am advised by officials that the figure is likely to be well over €600 million per year. The Minister for Social Protection has sought a report from the interdepartmental working group by quarter 3 of this year. Any policy proposals recommended by this group will be brought forward for consideration and decision by the Government. The establishment of that group to examine the means test is very positive.
I assure Deputies that the Government remains fully committed to doing all it can to support our carers. As I said at the outset, we are not opposing this motion. All of us in this House recognise the huge contribution that family carers make to our society and we all want to further enhance the supports available to them. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has done a lot in a short space of time. A pension has been introduced for long-term carers. The carer's support grant has been increased to its highest ever level. Weekly carer's payments have been increased by €29 in the past three years. Carers were prioritised as part of the various cost-of-living lump-sum payments provided by the Government. There have also been significant improvements to the means test in recent budgets, with another to come in June 2024. The Minister and I recognise that more needs to be done but we need to make sure that whatever we do is affordable and sustainable into the future.
I again thank the Deputies for raising this matter. As I said, any morning is well spent if it is spent speaking about supports, especially for older people. We have an ageing population in this country. Every week, I strive to provide the best supports we possibly can through the triangle of supports, which comprises home care, day care and meals on wheels. We should acknowledge that although we have an ageing population, we have the highest life expectancy in the EU, as deemed by the World Health Organization, and that did not happen by accident. It is down to carers, both paid and unpaid, who provide tremendous support. As Deputy Tóibín said, they do so in many cases out of love. They provide phenomenal support every day of the week. They support older, young and middle-aged people. I welcome this motion and the fact the Government is not opposing it. I thank Deputies for the opportunity to speak on the motion.
I thank the Minister of State for sitting in for the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. I acknowledge that some good work has been carried out by the Minister but I remind everyone that we have had no discussion of this issue in the House since the failed referendum. I remind the House of the commitment of the former Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, that the Government will continue to increase payments to carers and people with disabilities. He also said that the Government would relax the means test and improve the home care tax credit. We need to follow up on that. We lauded carers. We even brought forward a referendum that said we would make their lives easier and more worthwhile by having them mentioned in the Constitution. It was rejected not because of carers but for other reasons.
I will use my time to read what an average carer's day sounds like. It is not necessarily about old people or the elderly among our population. The following example is that of a mother of five children, three of whom have a chromosomal disorder, t(14;21), which is very rare.
All three have very complex medical needs with intellectual and physical disabilities and all three are full-time wheelchair users with medical disorders, including brain anomalies, failing respiratory systems, chronic inoperable cardiac conditions, issues with swallowing with two of them being PEG-fed full time, liver and kidney issues and osteoporosis. All three have full health insurance with no exemptions due to disability. They have had cover since birth. One also has a metabolic disorder and requires a specialised blended diet. Despite all of the issues the three children have stacked against them, they are very happy. Two of them are now young adults and live to the best they can thanks mainly to their carer - their mam.
One younger child had hip surgery at the age of nine and has not walked since. The surgery was not successful and multiple surgeries were required afterwards due to screws loosening in the femur and plates cutting into the hip socket. I think it took an additional eight surgeries, which left the child with a shortened leg and a hip set at 90°.
One of the other children has kyphosis, scoliosis and a subluxed hip. He has been seen privately in the Blackrock Clinic and was told he would need surgery but would have to go to Crumlin due to the complex needs. He endured a wait of three years for an MRI under general anaesthetic. Then Covid happened and the surgery that was meant to take place in 2018 only took place in October 2021. The bone had been left for so long that the ball joint had worn down to the socket. The femoral head had to be removed and a titanium shoulder put in. This was supposed to leave the child pain-free but with a shorter leg. This was not the case. After numerous appointments and feeling that nobody was listening to her, my constituent got a spinal appointment only in July 2023 when the doctor informed her that the pain was from the hip and not the spine. He was referred back to the hip surgeon in July 2023. In December 2023, the child was brought to accident and emergency at Wexford General Hospital where he was to have an X-ray. The parent was told the following day that orthopaedics in Waterford were not taking on the case at this stage and that she would have to go back to Dublin. Numerous phone calls were made to the secretary that yielded nothing but the parent saw the doctor face to face at her other son's appointment and asked that he be seen urgently. She was told that she would need it in writing that local services were refusing to see him. A letter was forwarded to the doctor but she was told by the secretary that a referral letter had gone to Cappagh. The family has since seen medical surgeon Noelle Cassidy in Cappagh who told them that due to the child's complexities, he would require the backup services of the Mater Hospital. The child is currently awaiting pre-ops. During all this time, the child has suffered with recurrent canker mouth ulcers that spread to his throat in 2024. He has been to Caredoc, the GP and accident and emergency multiple times and has been given many different types of medications. The child needs an ENT appointment that the family has been told will take two or more years. The parent has requested medical records from Crumlin.
I will finish by sharing the final part of the email this parent sent to me:
I am at a stage of frustration and I'm worn out. The failure of the health system is a joke. I am a carer, nurse, physio, dietitian, speech and language therapist, advocate. I preform minor surgery at home when feeding tubes dislodge. I train nurses and carers in manual handling, food safety and then I’m the mum to do fun things, attend meetings, attend sports, games.
I could go on but that is what carers do for us. I ask the Minister of State to abolish the means test and take the fear away.
The recent referendum has once again shone a light on the critical role carers play in our communities. In every corner of Ireland, there are family carers tirelessly devoting themselves to the well-being of their loved ones. In fact, family carers represent one in eight of the Irish population and have long been the cornerstone of care provision in this country. Whether it is caring for an ageing parent, a spouse with a chronic illness or a child with special needs, these remarkable individuals demonstrate unwavering commitment day in, day out. They navigate the challenges with grace, compassion and resilience, often putting their own needs and desires on hold to ensure the comfort and happiness of their family members. However, for too long they have been left behind without proper support from the State. The financial vulnerability imposed by the current means testing of the carer’s allowance has left many carers in uncertain financial situations, often dependent on their partner's income. For many carers who care for a child with additional needs, their caring role is likely to last for many decades, which has serious implications for their long-term well-being and financial security. This needs to end now. With an ageing population, it is estimated that the number of people living with life-limiting conditions will increase the requirement for carers yet we only have to read the state of caring report 2022, produced by Family Carers Ireland, to see the significant challenges faced by family carers, including the battle in accessing services and carers themselves feeling undervalued by society.
Family Carers Ireland plays a vital role in advocating for the rights and welfare of family carers across the nation. It tirelessly campaigns for better resources, increased awareness and enhanced support services to empower family carers and alleviate their burdens. Its advocacy efforts serve as a beacon of hope for countless families, offering reassurance that they are not alone in their journey. However, we need to step in. In a bid to address the pressing needs of family carers across Ireland, my colleagues in the Regional Group and I have tabled this motion calling for the abolition of means testing for carer’s allowance.
The means test for carer’s allowance is no longer fit for purpose and is significantly gender-biased. Despite improvements in recent years, the carer’s allowance means test remains one of the most contentious issues among family carers. In census 2022, 57% of carers specified that they are juggling work with caring responsibilities; however, thousands of full-time family carers do not qualify for carer’s allowance due to modest household incomes. This undervalues the full-time work they provide. There are 51,207 carers in receipt of the full rate of carer's allowance, with 45,111 carers in receipt of the half-rate carer's allowance as they already have another social welfare payment. A total of 6,481 full-time carers received the carer’s support grant as a stand-alone payment in 2023 as they do not satisfy the carer’s allowance means test.
Carers are discouraged from work or study of more than 18.5 hours. Carer’s allowance is the only social welfare payment where recipients are expected to provide full-time care - 35 hours - and in return receive just €16 more than the basic social welfare rate. It was inadequate even before the cost-of-living crisis and is especially so given that households caring for a child with a profound disability face additional weekly costs of up to €244. The proposal to abolish means testing for carer’s allowance and establish a non-means-tested participation income by 2027 aligns with calls from Family Carers Ireland, which has long advocated for reforms to better support carers. This measure would mark a significant step forward in acknowledging and supporting the vital work of family carers in our society.
As we reflect on the invaluable contributions of family carers, let us reaffirm our commitment to supporting them in every way possible. We are therefore calling for the establishment of a high-level official group to scope out and develop a road map for the delivery of a non-means-tested participation income for family carers, thereby abolishing the means test completely by 2027. People looking after their ageing parents, a spouse with a chronic illness or a child with special needs have a tough job. It is a vocation. It is love. There is not a day in my constituency office when somebody does not come in to complain about this. We have families we cannot get carers for and there are people willing to do the job. Look at the money these carers have saved the Government over the past number of years. A figure of €20 billion has been mentioned, which is a serious amount of money. These people need help. There are extra costs. In fairness, the Minister for Social Protection has done a good job over the past number of years but we need to do more. I ask the Minister of State to listen to us.
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit. Tosóidh mé le ráiteas a bhfuil soiléir ach is fiú é a rá, ar aon chor. Níl aon duine ag fáil liúntas na ndaoine atá an Roinn ag tabhairt cúnamh dóibh de bharr go bhfuil sé furasta nó go bhfuil siad compordach. Tá siad á ndéanamh toisc go bhfuil sé tábhachtach agus mar léiriú dá gcuid grá do na daoine atá siad ag tabhairt aire dóibh. I will start with a statement that I think is obvious but is important to reflect upon. Nobody is on carer's allowance because it is easy. Nobody is on carer's allowance because it is comfortable. Nobody is on carer's allowance for the sake of a quiet life. Many of these people would do it for nothing. They are doing it out of a sense of love, duty and responsibility. Carer's allowance is intended to ensure that people who are in that situation are protected from hardship, vulnerability and in some instances, from poverty.
The motion is welcome because the fact is the allowance is not always successful in that regard.
There are many who are caring for their loved ones who do not qualify for either the full carer’s payments or enough payments to make ends meet. This happens against a difficult background. In our constituency offices, we sometimes have to have conversations with people and we give people advice. It is not always comfortable because we would be advising people applying for carer’s payments to make sure to keep a diary of all their duties. You feel uncomfortable because you do not want these people to have to justify to you what they are doing, but it is good advice when they are making an application. As well as having to justify the care they give, they sometimes have to go through onerous means tests. I was recently speaking to a gentleman who was asked about construction work that he and his brother had done 30 years ago. The means test can be extremely onerous and challenging, and we need to reflect on that. The means threshold is too low, so it is welcome that we are looking at this area.
It is also worth examining the participation income. There is a difference given that the cost the Minister of State quoted is substantially higher than the cost the Parliamentary Budget Office provided to Deputy Tully, which is similar to the figure that Family Carers Ireland supplied to the Regional Group. This is worth examining and there are several reasons to do so. Aside from the fact that we need to respect, recognise and support carers, we need to recognise the challenges that other countries are facing. Increasingly, there is a challenge in terms of care. If someone is looking for care from the HSE, it is extremely difficult to access hours. The waiting lists are very long in many places, including in my own county of Cork, where they are particularly high. In other countries, it is an even worse situation. We have a situation in Ireland where many people are willing and able to give care for their loved ones but they deserve the respect of decent support to be able to do that. There are strategic considerations that the Department should take into consideration but more important is the moral obligation to ensure support for people who, out of responsibility and love for the people they care for, are working extremely hard.
My final point is on a slight tangent. It relates to carer’s benefit. Many people find themselves on carer’s benefit and caring for loved ones. That is an insurance-based payment but it can be substantially lower than their previous income and they might still have a mortgage and all the other outgoings. We have looked at pay-related jobseeker’s payments, which is welcome, so perhaps it is time to also look at pay-related carer’s benefit.
I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward the motion and affording us the opportunity to address the House on the need to review and reform support for carers. Family carers have long been held up as a crucial pillar of parent support in Ireland. Various departmental strategies and documents refer to the important role that family carers play in our society, viewing them as the backbone of care provision in Ireland.
The often unquantifiable costs experienced by parents caring for a child with a profound intellectual disability include the impact on physical and mental health, the loss of income caused by the inability to work outside the home because of caring duties, the potential for a life of debt or poverty, social isolation, strain on relationships and the constant stress of always having to fight because of the inadequacies in the provision of services and supports to which the child is entitled. While many family carers reflected how they find caring for loved ones extremely rewarding and while their immense contribution is estimated to save the State approximately €20 billion per annum, research by Family Carers Ireland found that family carers are lonelier, more isolated and in poorer health than the average person in Ireland.
Time and again, family carers have not received the care and support they need and deserve. This is also reflected in the research findings which stress that the carer’s allowance scheme is inadequate. It is gender biased, restrictive, undervalues care and is no longer fit for purpose. The scheme was first introduced in 1990. It was not designed to meet the circumstances of lifetime carers who care for prolonged periods and need access to an integrated income support system that encourages rather than restricts participation in work and education. I welcome the fact an interdepartmental working group has been established to look at this issue. Is there a timescale for this work? It could go on forever, but we need it to be finalised within as short period as possible.
I question the figure of €600 million per year. Is it possible to find out how that was calculated and to share that information with the Opposition and Family Carers Ireland? Family Carers Ireland did some calculations on its own basis and also requested the Parliamentary Budget Office to do that. When we compared the results, they were very similar, coming in at just under €400 million, so I wonder where the additional cost of €200 million has come from.
Where carers are receiving a carer’s allowance payment, in many cases it falls well below the established minimum essential standard of living. In budget 2024, we called for the carer’s allowance and carer’s benefit to be increased by €15 per week as part of a vision to incrementally bring them in line with the minimum essential standard of living. We also called for an increase to the income threshold for carer’s allowance and for this to take effect from January 2024, not six months later, in June, as the Government has done. It would have resulted in higher payments for current recipients on reduced payments and more carers would have qualified for the allowance from the start of the year.
With regard to supports for carers, on Monday I engaged with a person who has locked-in syndrome and who can only move her eyes. Her mother is not getting the support she requires. She has a care package approved but the carers do not turn up half the time and it is very stressful for the family. It needs to be addressed.
While there was a great deal of money in the budget this year, it failed people with disabilities, their families and carers. The Government failed the 1,752 carers in County Laois and the 2,182 carers in County Offaly. Those are just the people in receipt of payments and, of course, there are thousands who do not get payments. Many of those are struggling to secure respite care and people are fighting to secure home care packages for the elderly. Waiting times are getting longer, and there is a shortage of home care assistants for young people with disabilities.
I bring to the attention of the Minister of State that where younger people with disabilities - by that, I mean people aged under 65 - need full-time residential care, places cannot be found. What is happening is that when they go for respite, families are sometimes forced to leave them there because that is the only way they can force the HSE and the authorities to find residential places for them. It is not satisfactory that this has to be done.
It does not make financial sense for the Government not to properly fund carers as it costs the State to pay for long-term care and for nursing homes. People living with disabilities and their carers in Laois and Offaly must have their voices heard and those elected to represent them, like myself, need to stand up and ensure the services are properly funded. The Government has the money to sort this out. I heard the Minister for Finance on radio this morning when I was stuck in a traffic jam on my way to Dublin. He was outlining budget surpluses and projected budget surpluses. While I know that we have to be careful with public money, we have the money to sort this out. Surely it is the bare minimum that, as a State, we can look after the most vulnerable citizens, in particular people who are disabled, the elderly and carers, many of whom are facing burnout.
The State’s carers must have their invaluable work recognised. Carers in Laois, Offaly and across the country deserve much better but, instead, many of them feel abandoned and constantly let down by successive Governments. They need to see much more substantial support put in place. This includes assessments of need, therapy supports, personal assistants, home care assistants and more respite places. It is also vital to improve access to day-care and community services. The Government must also address the issue of the means test for carer’s allowance and disability allowance. Financial supports for people with disabilities and their carers are inadequate and they fail the minimum essential standard-of-living tests. We must ensure they are looked after in the next budget.
I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward the motion. We heard from previous speakers about the people who care for others. It is personal but there is the knock-on effect of poverty, mental health issues and so on. I am going to concentrate on the good work that carers do, in particular on an amazing and successful story that I raised in the House a number of months ago.
One woman cared for her daughter for more than 20 years. She never received a brown penny because her husband was earning too much. The lady had to walk that young girl more than 5 miles twice each day in order that she would sleep. She worked in the organisation as a carer as well. She broke her hip and then had to buy a bicycle and cycle it every day while minding her child. It was only after I raised the issue in the Chamber that I found out that in cases such as that, there are caseworkers within the Department who deal with people on a one-to-one basis. Thankfully, after a number of weeks, I met the lady in my town. She thanked me and told me that it was the first time life that she had a bank account. These are the kind of stories we hear. It is important to recognise all the carers. Caring is a vocation.
I had another case involving a lady with stage 4 cancer who had additional hours sanctioned. However, the hours could no be availed of. In the meantime, incontinence pants were being rationed. It is absolutely ludicrous that this happens to the most vulnerable and those who need the most help. Carers are locked in a situation. As previous speakers mentioned, some of these people have never claimed any benefits. I have dealt with cases where mums in particular have cared for their own children for 20 or 25 years and never claimed because they did not even know that they could do so.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this matter. Things have to be done right, and these carers have to be respected and paid properly.
I wish the Minister of State well in her new job. It is a really important role, particularly when it comes to carers. She knows that carers, and family carers in particular, comprise one of the most neglected groups of people in the State. They save us hundreds of millions of euro, and we pay lip service to their efforts. There are many things we can do. There is not a TD in this House who, at any given time, will not have lists of carers, applications for appeals, etc., that need to be sorted out. We are all well aware of the problems.
I thank the Regional Independent Group for providing the opportunity to discuss this matter further. We need a comprehensive rights-based charter for carers. We need a strategy that cuts across all Departments to make the rights of carers is a reality. We also need to ensure the reform of carer's allowance that is mentioned the motion and that we have spoken about here several times. It is wholly unacceptable that we have situations whereby carers are living in poverty and grasping for services that are not being provided, whether it be the different therapies or supports that are needed. They continuously ask where are the millions of euro that are supposed to be invested for people with disabilities and elderly people. Where is that money going? It is certainly not going to the carers and it is certainly not being used to provide the services to which I refer. Why does it take months for appeals to be dealt with? We go over and back.
If one considers the way genuine carers are treated in terms of trying to access the carer's allowance, one would think, given the level of detail requested of them, that they were criminals. I completely agree that there needs to be proper governance and auditing, but the questions posed and the repeated and constant requests for information are wholly unacceptable. Having to provide that information causes delays lasting months, and that is in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. I have cases on my desk that have been there for months. I continuously call the carer's allowance section in respect of cases. The officials often want one item of information and then it is something else and something after that. Can we provide the carer's allowance section and the appeal section with the resources they need to do the job and allow them to be able to communicate properly with applicants? Carers will be prioritised by Sinn Féin in government. We have shown that with the charter and many other things we have brought forward. Regardless of that, we have to do something now.
The treatment of family carers by the State is completely unacceptable. Time and again families come to me exhausted, frustrated and angry because they cannot get the home care packages they need. On occasions when packages are sanctioned, the staff are not available to supply them. They also come to me because they are struggling financially and because they cannot get respite care. I am dealing with the case of a young man who looks after his mother. He cannot get away for one week. He loves his mother and minds her for 52 weeks of the year. He cannot get one week off because this Government does not respect him, his mother or carers in general.
Before Christmas, I dealt with the case of family who wanted to travel to America to see a brother getting married. They could not do so. They were told that it would be sorted. Imagine trying to organise for your family to go away to one of the happiest family occasions. Once again, there was no respite care available. That is not good enough.. These are people who provide care for their loved ones. The one time they looked for a bit of support they could not get it.
As we have seen from the latest report from Family Carers Ireland, 13% of people are struggling to pay their rent or are in arrears with their rent or their mortgages. Some 70% say that they are lonely. They are caring for their parents, their loved ones or their siblings and they are lonely because they feel they are doing it alone. The Government needs to help; it needs to step in and support these people.
I have a very good friend who is looking after her mother. Her mother wants to stay at home and my friend wants to keep her there. She cannot get a family care package at the weekend, even though it has been sanctioned, because there are no staff available to do the work. She is bringing in friends to help. She is doing so because she loves her mother, and that is what this is about. It is not about money; it is about people caring for their families. I plead with the Minister of State to do more. Family carers need support now.
As Sinn Féin spokesperson for older people, I am delighted to take the opportunity to speak in support of this motion. I thank the Regional Group for bringing it before the House.
In data compiled by the Central Statistics Office, a carer is defined as someone who provides unpaid assistance to others. Almost 500,000 people, women, men and incredible children under 15 years of age, are carers. These people spend their lives caring for family members, whether it be elderly parents or a child or adult dependant with special needs who will continue to need care for a very long time to come. Let us not forget those elderly people who are left to care for ill and vulnerable spouses or adult disabled children with special and often complex needs. These people save the State countless billions of euro each year by giving up their lives to care for their loved ones. They do amazing work and yet their carer's allowance is still means tested. Their caring is taken for granted. Means testing the carer's allowance is adding insult to injury. We must realise that these carer payments as they stand do not even come up to minimum essential standard-of-living tests. The Government needs to recognise the invaluable work carers do.
I have a carer in my constituency who is a mother in her 80s, still caring for a profoundly disabled son who is 50 years of age. How is that fair? She gets little or no respite. My colleague spoke about that as well. The woman goes nowhere because she cannot leave her son. That is not good enough.
On numerous occasions, Sinn Féin has called for changes to the carer's allowance system. In our charter for carers, we recommend higher income thresholds, increasing eligibility through relaxing the means test and raising the income disregard thresholds. It is time these people were looked after. I expect that the House will support this motion.
I congratulate Deputy Higgins on her appointment as Minister of State. I wish her well in the role and I hope that she will have a good, long sojourn in the Department.
It is appropriate that the Minister of State is here. Although she may not be the line Minister for this issue, she is the Minister of State in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with responsibility for business, employment and retail. The issue of demographics is writ large across the issue being discussed. It will have a massive long-term, knock-on effect on how carers are supported. It will have a knock-on effect in the workplace, because as we face into increased rates of chronic disease such as Alzheimer's and dementia, workers will need to be part of the caring infrastructure into the future. That will have a knock-on effect for businesses and other employers. This is something that has to feed into the interdepartmental working group that has been set up.
I listened with interest to the contribution of the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. She stated:
The work of the interdepartmental working group will be informed by: a broader review of means test being carried out by the Department of Social Protection, which includes the carer's allowance means test provisions; work being carried out by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth under the Action Plan for Disability Services 2024-2026 to increase family resilience and provide extra support for carers and their families; and the national carer's strategy, led by the Department of Health, which is designed around a core vision of recognising, empowering and supporting family carers.
That is all laudable and good. It suggests that a plan is being put in place and that the Government very much recognises the challenges that society faces in terms of the need to ensure there is a proper carer's strategy in place. However, I am a little bit perplexed by what I would call the Department of public expenditure and reform-type language used by the Minister of State when she said she was advised by officials that "the figure is likely to be well over €600 million per year". Already we see the pause and the brake being put on. I hope that in the short time left to me on my mandate, as somebody who is departing this House, we will not have the bean counters putting the brakes on a process where there is such demand from a demographic and societal point of view for carers to be recognised and for their role to be recognised as meaningful in society.
Notwithstanding the advances that have been made by the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, to give her her due, a proper, long-term strategy must be put in place which finally, after over 30 years, recognises the validity and dignity that carers bring to those for whom they are caring. I acknowledge the advances made to date. The Minister said that there will be access to the State pension for carers. That is very laudable, as is the increase to the carer's support grant. The Department has increased the weekly carer's payment by €29 over the last three budgets which is also laudable and a step in the right direction that we absolutely support. What I would call for in my own modest way, in terms of the annual carer's forum which is to meet imminently, is that interventions made there by groups like Family Carers Ireland are taken seriously and there is a feed-in process into the interdepartmental working group so that there is a meaningful outcome which involves a financial commitment to abolishing the means test. That is the direction of travel that the Minister of State will hear everybody talk about here today, including Members on the Government backbenches. Everybody wants to see this happen.
When the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, issued her statement on the setting up of the interdepartmental working group, she referred to cases that she has dealt with in her own constituency and cases that people like me and everybody in this House have brought to her attention, saying:
I recognise however that no matter where I draw the line on the means test, there will always be some families who fall outside the limits. The case I see most frequently is where a mother has to give up her job to provide care for a child with special needs but because of her husband’s income, she does not qualify for a payment.
I have had umpteen cases where a worker, predominantly a male, does overtime and then that worker's spouse, predominantly a female and a mother caring for a child - not necessarily a child who is under 18 but in some cases a young adult - loses everything, including the medical card. If we can fix those issues on the journey towards the abolition of the means test then we will be doing a good day's work as a society.
I welcome the fact that the Department of Social Protection is hosting the annual carers forum. The latter cannot be a talking shop. Whatever feedback is received must be taken on board and must become part of a real output that sets up a situation whereby we are moving towards the abolition of the means test.
In the short time remaining, I want to refer to several cases I have come across, as has my colleague, Senator Mark Wall involving individuals in receipt of jobseeker's benefit who have had their payment cut when they applied for carer's allowance. The system at the moment is cutting payments to people who are on jobseeker's benefit when they apply for carer's allowance. Can that anomaly be fixed? I am being gracious when I call it an anomaly but if it is a deliberate policy and strategy within the Department of Social Protection, then it is cruel, technocratic, bureaucratic and needs to be fixed.
I thank the Regional Group for tabling this motion, which is incredibly important and timely. The Social Democrats fully support it. The motion recognises carers' invaluable contribution to society and highlights their mistreatment by the State, which is something that I hope we can work collectively, across the Chamber, to rectify. I echo the call to fully abolish the carer's allowance means test, as reflected in the research published by Maynooth University and commissioned by Family Carers Ireland. One of its very simple conclusions was that there should be no means test. Of course, there should be no means test. To put it crudely, what exactly are we testing? Is it the nature of a person's care and the State's expectation that he or she will experience poverty in the process of providing that care? It comes down to asking what is the person's income, what is the level of care being provided, does the person earn lower than a certain threshold to be impoverished and is the care being given enough to exclude the carer from the workplace. It is brutal in its cruelty.
Family Carers Ireland hears from carers every year, mostly women, who have little or no support from the State for their caring roles. What stands out for me in my years as a public representative and having spoken to people about this issue is the amount of women who have had to leave the workplace to take up a caring role and because of their husband's payments, the State determines that they will no longer be in receipt of an income. So many lose their financial independence and that is absolutely scandalous. Many carers are left with no financial independence having spent their whole working lives doing the difficult but essential work that is care-giving. I know of no economic or social argument to justify denying financial security to people in that situation. The State owes them that much.
Fundamental reform of the carer's allowance scheme is essential as the status quo is completely inadequate, especially for young carers, many of whom are currently inhibited in their life opportunities outside of their caring role. The very idea of respite is fundamental. Many Members know of young people who have had to put their lives on hold to care for a parent or sibling. In doing so, they have had to remove themselves from socialising and many have no capacity to meet anyone. The people I talk to are struggling to pay their rent. Ours is a cruel and indifferent system.
I agree fully with the sentiments of Family Carers Ireland who succinctly present the policy changes we must see on the back of these discussions, which are captured perfectly in this motion. They include the introduction of a non-means tested participation income for all family carers who fulfil the assessment criteria, to be fully implemented by January 2027 and to be paid initially at no less than the contemporary carer's allowance rate. Family Carers Ireland has called for the creation of an implementation group "to ensure all aspects of legislation, costing, administrative feasibility, communication and eligibility criteria are clearly planned and in place before Budget 2027". Is states that this group should "follow co-production principles and include participants reflecting relevant aspects of public administration, family carers and representatives of people in need of additional care". The work of the group should begin this year and conclude as soon as humanly possible. The third reform called for is the benchmarking and indexing of a participation income for family carers in line with the recommendations of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. The final policy change called for is the creation of a navigational operations group to improve navigational processes related to applying for and proving eligibility for the new support payment and existing payments.
Governments have long promised legislation to further support carers. As yet this promise is too late but we hope we are starting to see the benefits. Nobody should have to suffer this injustice any longer, yet carers are still peering over a cliff edge without any reassurances. The figures are startling. More than 500,000 individuals are family carers in this State, which means one in eight people in Ireland are not paid for the toil, sweat and tears they give in caring for a loved one. It is an obligation the State should be able to meet. They provide more care across the country than any organisation or institution, yet they receive the least support, praise and recognition for their sacrifice. So often we meet a person who tells us they are a family carer, and we all have that silence in between that space because we know they work they do is underpaid and under-recognised. They are being failed by the State.
Care often has severe mental and physical health effects for those who carry it out, problems which often arise later in life and would not have arisen if the State showed adequate support to those affected. Many carers find themselves in precarious situations financially. Some are parents of children with additional needs while others are relatives of ailing elders. They have seen decades of disregard by the State, which has refused to fairly remunerate their hard work. This predicament will not simply fade away, although the wish seems to be to sit idly by and watch the storm pass. The number of carers increased by over 50% between 2016 and 2022 and is expected to continue to increase significantly due to population ageing and an increase in the number of people living with life-limiting conditions.
We know that carers save the State billions of euro each year, yet they receive no acknowledgement of how great a burden they carry for the State. It is hard to think of a greater injustice than someone spending decades caring for a severely ill or profoundly disabled family member, all the while receiving little to no support from the State which they are aiding. It is less than that, even. They are tested, they are put through financial scrutiny and have their bank accounts analysed. This is the reality faced by many long-term caregivers who, lest we forget, had to fight so hard to spur the Government to create an adequate pension scheme for them, which is very welcome. No group is more deserving of the admiration and support of our society than people who spend years and decades in these caring roles. Aside from the social value provided, they save the economy billions of euro annually. While our carers are making an incalculable social and economic contribution to society, successive governments have totally failed to recognise these selfless efforts. The way the system decides who is entitled to fair support means some of the most deserving people in our society are left facing financial uncertainty and insecurity. The State does not value carers' work as much as it values paid employment. That is very clearly a fact. Public policy needs to reflect more modern thinking about what counts as valuable work in this State.
I wish the Minister of State very well in her new role. It is a vital and important role for so many people. I implore her not to maintain the status quo. There is a time to be radical in this space. So many people demand it of us. I wish the Minister of State well.
Next up is People Before Profit-Solidarity. Deputies Bríd Smith and Richard Boyd Barrett are sharing time, is that correct?
I think Deputy Smith is not coming in. I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this important motion. People Before Profit strongly believes we should abolish the means test for carer's allowance. Indeed, we are against means testing full stop. I will talk a bit more about that. In the case of carers, it is completely unacceptable. Hundreds of thousands of people in this country, out of care and love for children with special needs or disability, family members, or the elderly who are unwell or disabled, provide them with care and do the State an enormous service in the process. If it was fully recognised and acknowledged, it would be clear this saves the State billions of euro every year. However, Ireland has always done care on the cheap. The use of phrases like "vocation" has become an excuse to underpay those who provide care of all sorts, including the so-called caring professions, particularly women, or not to pay them at all. That is absolutely wrong.
It was brought home to me recently by a women I met on the street in Dún Laoghaire who talked about how she had given up her entire career to look after her children with special needs. She did it out of love. She was not sorry that she did but she talked about the daily struggle, the lack of supports, respite, the pressure, the stress of all of that and the lack of acknowledgement. Although she was not citing her own example, she talked about others she knew in a similar situation and described the vulnerability that women expose themselves to because of the means testing of carer's allowance, which may rule them out of it altogether and therefore make them entirely dependent on their partner. As she put it, she knew of women who had to beg husbands for money for Tampax. That is a terrible position to put women in. In situations of possible domestic abuse, that is putting women in a desperate position of vulnerability.
This is precisely why in respect of one of the universal payments we have, the children's allowance, it was recognised as critical to give a payment directly to women. There are very few people who would not say that was the right thing to do. This is about the independence and respect of our carers, the majority of whom are women. The current situation is about trapping them in dependence and in poverty. That is wrong and it has to stop.
The other critical point is that there are always going to be significant numbers of people on the wrong side of thresholds and eligibility criteria. We all know it. We see example after example; a few euro over and you lose your supports. You are allowed work 18 hours. If you work 19 hours, you lose it all. That is wrong. It is trapping people in poverty and dependence. It has to go. We need to provide carers with certainty, independence and respect. I do not think there is any excuse for it being retained. I hear the Government saying it is looking at it. It should go.
If the message was not clear enough, it was made absolutely clear by carers and people with disabilities in the recent referendum. People did not vote against that for regressive reasons but because they felt the Government was not willing to give carers and people with disabilities the rights they deserve. That is why they voted against it, whatever people may think. By the same token, I believe we should get rid of the means test for disability allowance. The Minister of State may say there could be people on very high incomes with a disability who would excessively benefit from something like that. In truth, just like the universal payment for children's allowance, if we get rid of the means test for carer's allowance, as we should, it is the quickest and easiest way to give the support, payment and acknowledgement to people. For a small number of people who might be on very high incomes, if the State wants to claw the payment back, it can do so through the tax system.
Think about the massive waste of resources in means testing. There are whole sections of multiple Departments spending all their time means-testing people. It is a waste of money and a waste of resources.
Indeed, we would go further and not just get rid of the means test. There should be a living wage for carers and a minimum, decent disability payment in the arena of €350 a week, which disability campaigners are talking about. The majority of those who get the payments, which are very low payments, are in effect below the poverty line. It is wrong that many people with disabilities and carers are trapped in poverty. They should have a decent living income. If we are talking about equality, why should people be trapped in that situation because of disability or because they provide care for loved ones, family members or friends?
Slightly tangential but connected, the thresholds for medical cards need to be addressed. It is crazy that the threshold for medical card eligibility is less than the basic social welfare payment. The reviews of people aged over 70 are absolutely crazy. For example, I recently met a man who is over 80 years of age, for whom nothing had changed his life, yet he lost his medical card because of a review.
Moving on to the Rural Independent Group, we have six speakers and I ask them to respect one another with regard to time. I will stop them after eight minutes.
I commend the Regional Group on bringing this motion forward this morning. I fully support it, particularly its call for the Government to establish a high-level officials group to scope out and develop a road-map for the delivery of a non-means-tested participation income for family carers.
Many of us have repeatedly called for greater levels of support for carers, even while accepting that a significant amount of Government funding is allocated. That being said, I make the comparison with the Government's acceptance of the principle around the universal roll-out of GP access cards. If the Government can accept the principle that everyone should have access to care at the most basic level, then I fail to see how it cannot also accept the principle that carers should have access to supports at the universal level given they provide highly complex, 24-7 levels of care to their loved ones. Some carers in my constituency of Laois-Offaly are caring for two members of their family. These carers deserve to be treated fairly, equally and with respect. The fact that carers save the health service billions of euro annually only serves to underscore the injustice of insisting all applicants remain subject to a vigorous means-tested assessment process.
I congratulate the Minister of State on her elevation. I wish her good luck. I welcome this motion and I fully support its objectives. Today in Ireland more than half a million people, one in eight, are family carers providing regular unpaid care. These carers form the backbone of Ireland's care provision, yet they often lack the support and recognition they deserve. The long-term intensive nature of their caring role, often without adequate support or recognition, can negatively impact a carer's physical and mental health, financial stability and social integration. The main issue to arise from this is to abolish the means testing completely. It is not right to be means-testing these people. Family carers play a crucial role in our society by providing regular unpaid care to those who need it most. They are the backbone of our care system, often stepping in where the State services cannot reach. Despite their invaluable contribution, carers often lack the support and recognition they deserve. Their work is not only physical and emotionally demanding but it also has significant financial implications. I support this motion 100%.
I also congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment and I look forward to working with her. The Government is the carer of the country, but it is not reflected down along when we look at the legislation in place on carers. Carers go above and beyond to care for people in their homes. In regard to the value for money they give, there is no Government agency or employee that can give that same care for the cost of payments to carers for the care that they provide. They travel to a person's home and give care in the home but they are not being looked after by the Government. In many cases they look after two people. Often they work outside of their hours to care for people to make sure they have the right amount of care. We are looking at people from the point of view of means testing. People have worked all their lives and, if they have any small bit of savings, they are penalised in a means test. That is wrong. There is no reward for people in this country who care or who work all their lives. I ask the Minister of State to please look after the carers of this country because they are the carers who will look after us.
I thank the Regional Group for bringing this worthy motion before us today. I will be supporting it 100%. There have been many promises in the past in regard to helping carers but they have fallen on deaf ears, so far. The nub of the problem is that means testing for carer's allowance will have to be abolished - full stop, no ifs or buts about it. There are other groups that should not be means tested either but this is solely about carers. We are asking that the means testing for this be abolished. We also hope that something will be done about respite for people. The Government will have to accede to the means testing request - no more ifs or buts about it. The money is there. The Government is squandering it in other places.
I welcome the family carers who are in the Public Gallery. Some are from my own county, such as Sophie Hannon, Andrew Rooney of Family Carers Ireland, Councillor Richard Molloy, who is manager of south Tipperary carers, and their supporters and friends, including John Hackett, Dennis Holland and Joan Looby. Indeed, Joan recently lost her sister, Tina, for whom she cared so lovingly, and her late mother and father and Auntie Kit. The group there exemplifies what carers do. The carers association does tremendous work on a national basis but so do the carers in every house and home, some of whom are child carers or young people caring for their parents, who should not be. They need to be recognised and supported. I thank the Regional Group for bringing this motion. I support it.
I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, well in her new office. She is here as well as the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. However, I am disappointed there is no sign of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, who harangued and harassed the carers right through the referendum with phone calls and pressure to get out and sell a phoney article they were putting in the Constitution. She has not the good grace to show up here today to listen to the motion and listen to what happened. They got that so wrong. We saw what the then Taoiseach thought of the carers when a week before the vote he said the family was and should be the primary carer. We know where the Government's commitments lie. They are a long way from supporting the ordinary people who give of their valuable time so selflessly, 24-7. We need recognition for them. This motion should be adopted. I am not going to go into the different aspects of it. It should be adopted wholeheartedly. As I said, did the Government learn anything from that referendum? We are in the same situation now with regard to the migration pact. Níl sibh ag éisteacht.
Denis Holland is going on the tour of Leinster House shortly. When he is in the lovely town hall in Clonmel at the invitation of the mayor, he gives a tour to everybody which is very professional, so well done.
I congratulate the Minister of State in her new role, and I thank the Regional Group for tabling this important motion.
Every time we have spoken about the carers of this country I have called for the carer's allowance means test to be abolished. It is time the Minister set this in motion. Carers are doing the work, so pay them. That is the simple answer.
Also, the reablement service, a pilot project launched in Network 13 in 2023, provides home support for people struggling with tasks due to minor accidents. The service lasts for up to five or six weeks and includes assistance with dressing, showering, meal preparation, mobility, social activities and medication management. The team comprises an occupational therapist, OT, a physiotherapist and several healthcare assistants. The service has been highly praised by GPs and public health nurses. Most patients have been successfully reabled. However, this service is set to be discontinued in two weeks' time. The discontinuation could lead to potential falls and injuries for those who rely on the service, possibly resulting in hospitalisation, long-term residential care or the need for family members to provide care. This could increase the financial burden on health services and disrupt families. The service's discontinuation is due to the lead OT going on maternity leave. Despite interest from other qualified OTs, the decision to end the service is imminent. The HSE plans to roll out the reablement service to other counties, but the discontinuation of the pilot scheme in Cork is seen as a negative sign. I plead that this service be continued.
First, I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, well in her new role. I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this motion, which calls on the Government to abolish the carer's allowance means test and establish a high-level working group to do the groundwork in preparing for the delivery of a non-means-tested participation income for family carers.
I have lost count of the number of times I have stood up in this House to call for a fundamental reform of the carer's allowance scheme and to ensure both the adequacy of the payment and the abolition of the means test, which I call "the mean test". In March of last year, I brought forward my own Private Member's motion calling for this fundamental reform because, at its core, the carer's allowance scheme undervalues care, with approximately one in eight recipients receiving a reduced rate and thousands of full-time family carers excluded due to the means test.
It is important the public understands that to receive the carer's allowance, you must be caring full time. It is not a case of helping someone out or getting their shopping. It is full-time care for a person who has been medically assessed as needing full-time care. The minimum number of hours is 35 per week but, in reality, it is often twice that and for some family carers it is 24-7. When you satisfy all those criteria, you receive a means-tested €248 per week, just €16 more than the basic social welfare payment. We urgently need to increase the levels of income disregard to €750 per week for a single carer and €1,500 per week for a couple in the next two budgets in order that by 2027, we will be able to introduce a non-means-tested participation income for family carers.
Care is central to how we live and how our societies function, and for far too long, family carers have carried the burden, saving the State approximately €20 billion per annum. That is equivalent to a second HSE. Family carers in Sligo save the State about €260 million every year. In Leitrim, it is €120 million; in Roscommon, €250 million; and in Donegal, €600 million. We now need as a State to support those carers by abolishing the means test and working towards a non-means-tested participation income.
Gabhaim buíochas leis an nGrúpa Réigiúnach as ucht an rún seo a chur os comhair na Dála. Tá na figiúirí leagtha amach go soiléir. Níl i gceist ach rud bunúsach, is é sin, fáil réidh leis an tástáil acmhainne ó thaobh cúramóirí de. Tá an ceart iomlán aige agus aontaím leis. I thank the Regional Group for putting this motion before the Dáil.
Every year since I was first elected, I have argued in advance of every budget for a value to be put on the unpaid work of carers, who are predominantly women. When we look at the figure we have been given repeatedly, of €20 billion in savings to the State, that in itself should direct the Government's minds to look at this. If anything captures, in the most horrific way, the failure of neoliberalism and the free market, this is it. It has made caring into a product to be bought and sold, with absolutely no sympathy or feelings around it. The census of 2022 showed the number of people providing unpaid care had increased by more than 50%. Approximately 6% of the population identified as unpaid carers, and unpaid care is provided predominantly by women, of course.
I thank Family Carers Ireland, as usual, for the second survey it undertook. It looked at the savings to the State and predicted that by 2030, one in five adults will be a carer. A total of 52% of the people who responded were living in a household with a gross income of less than €30,000, struggling to make ends meet, struggling psychologically and struggling to pay their rent or their mortgage. Last week, the Dáil endorsed, although I did not, a pension scheme that will take an additional €40 a week out of the pocket of anyone earning more than €20,000.
Of course, we are awaiting the Supreme Court judgment in the case of a woman who is struggling to mind her son with a range of disability and who has had to go to the High Court, where the case was rejected, and now to the Supreme Court to try to make sense of the article in the Constitution that states no woman shall be obliged to work outside the home. Instead of dealing with that and changing the reference to "parent", the Government foolishly went ahead with a referendum and told the people what was best. If the Government were seriously interested and if I were to accept its bona fides, the very thing it should do is accept this motion and put a timeline with a date on the high-level working group that has been requested, because that would go some way towards proving the Government’s bona fides, rather than have this woman struggle with all the costs and effort in the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, I am not even sure whether it is the right case, but I hope the Supreme Court will take the opportunity to look at that article and to interpret it in a 21st century way.
I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to speak on this motion regarding support for carers, which I fully support. The way family carers are treated in this country is disgraceful. Sadly, carers are penalised despite the fact they provide the State with a vital service. Family carers play an extremely important role in care provision but completely lack any recognition for the work they do and are given almost no support. Caring is the only job that costs money to do, with carers facing additional weekly costs of €244 according to Family Carers Ireland. Caring is also the only job that does not allow for sick days, with carers afraid to take time off when they are unwell, fearing their allowance might be stopped.
I wholly support the motion's call to abolish the means test for carers altogether. It is estimated that removing the means test would cost an additional €397 million. However, carers already save the State €20 billion a year, and this needs to be recognised and compensated adequately. It is unfair that carers are not paid for the work they do. In my constituency, Donegal, there are almost 10,700 unpaid carers, or 6% of the county's population. The carer's allowance is also extremely outdated and gender biased. As we know, the majority of family carers are women. It is they whom we rely on to provide care and it is they whom we are failing to support. Carers are forced to be financially dependent on their partner, and this is a very vulnerable position to put anyone in, not least if they are involved in a difficult or abusive relationship. If the Government really valued women and the role of carers in this country, it would not have poured energy and money into a confusing referendum but would overhaul the carer's allowance and make it accessible to everyone who provides care in this country, which is the way it could show its bona fides in providing for carers.
Before I call on the Minister of State to respond, I congratulate her and wish her the very best of luck.
I thank the Cathaoirleach. I welcome the south Tipperary carers, who are still with us in the Gallery, and Denis and Josephine Higgins from Monaghan, who are also with us here today. I thank the Regional Group for tabling this Private Members' motion and for highlighting the fantastic work carers do throughout the country.
As the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, said in her opening statement, the Government is acutely aware of the valuable work being carried out by family carers and this is evidenced by the extensive measures that have been taken to support carers over recent years. This approach was maintained as part of budget 2024. In recognition of the role carers provide in our society, the Government announced further improvements to payments for carers, as outlined earlier by Deputy Sherlock. These include a €12 increase in the maximum rate of the carer's allowance and carer's benefit. The Government has increased the weekly rate of carer's payments by more than €29 over the past three budgets. A €10 per month increase was awarded for people in receipt of the domiciliary care allowance from January of this year. From June of this year, the earnings disregard for the carer's allowance will increase to €450 for a single person and €900 for a couple.
We have been in the midst of a rising cost of living over the past two years and carers are among the groups who have been most significantly impacted. Therefore, the Government has made provision for a number of cost-of-living lump-sum payments and double payments for these vulnerable groups over the past two winters. They include a cost-of-living double payment in January of this year and December of last year and a €400 lump-sum payment for people receiving the carer's support grant, which was paid in November 2023. In addition, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has acted to provide a pension solution for long-term carers. A range of other supports for carers, provided by the Department of Social Protection, are not based on a means assessment.
These include the carer’s support grant, carer’s benefit and domiciliary care allowance. The carer’s support grant is a payment for all carers, even those not in receipt of carer’s allowance. It can be claimed by carers regardless of their means or social insurance contributions. The Minister for Social Protection has increased this grant to €1,850, its highest ever rate. In early June, the grant will be paid to more than 127,000 carers in respect of some 143,000 carees. It is estimated that expenditure on this grant will be more than €290 million this year alone.
Carer’s benefit is based on social insurance contributions. It is an effective payment for people who may be required to leave the workforce or to 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 cost almost €58 million this year alone. The income ceiling for this payment will also rise to €450 in June as part of our budget measures.
I wish to speak briefly about the domiciliary care allowance payment. Currently, there are 54,652 families in receipt of this payment in respect of 61,373 children. This represents an increase of almost 37% in terms of families and 40% in terms of children in the past five years. In acknowledging the financial burden the families of sick children face, three significant changes have been made to the domiciliary care allowance payment in the past three years. First, the period during which domiciliary care allowance can be paid for children in hospital was extended from three months to six months. Second, with effect from last year, domiciliary care allowance is available for babies who remain in an acute hospital after birth for a period of six months. This year, the Minister for Social Protection will extend that period further to 18 months. Third, the monthly payment has increased by more than €30 to its current rate of €340, with this year's expenditure estimated to be €274 million.
While the Department of Social Protection provides other valuable income supports for carers, they often have more wide-ranging needs, including respite care, home care hours and access to disability services. Many Deputies raised these matters. Naturally, there is a tendency to focus on direct cash supports over investment in services, but access to these services and wider supports is crucial. In this regard, the Government is committed to continued improvement in the delivery of services and has made a number of commitments specifically for carers. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, outlined the carers guarantee. The family carers needs assessment is another important initiative. It was piloted in community healthcare west using moneys from the Dormant Accounts Fund to test the implementation of the interRAI family carer needs assessment across various care groups, including carers of people with dementia, older people, physical and sensory disability, intellectual disabilities and mental health issues. The pilot, which was carried out with family carers, examined the role of the family carer, how caring affects carers and how much care they can realistically provide while still allowing for involvement in other activities. The family carers needs assessment identified the types of support family carers needed to support them in their caring role and seeing how these could be met. The project’s final evaluation report was published in March. The HSE and the Department of Health are considering what next steps may be required to further support family carers.
Respite care is a vital part of the toolkit in supporting carers. Some €62 million is provided annually to provide respite beds in older people’s services. In June 2021, the HSE, in partnership with Family Carers Ireland, launched the home support emergency respite scheme, with funding of €600,000, to provide a total of 27,000 hours of respite care to unpaid carers who required additional emergency respite. The HSE is committed to continuing to improve emergency respite supports in 2024. Many Deputies referred to the need for access to respite care to be increased.
The Government and the HSE are very much aware of the importance of respite service provision for the families of children and adults with disabilities and the positive impact it can have on people’s lives. Respite is a key priority area for the HSE in respect of people with disabilities and their families and there has been significant investment in respite services in the past few years. Successive Governments have provided additional funding for respite services, resulting in an increase both in respite nights delivered and in the provision of day respite. New development funding of €15 million has been provided for 2024 – rising to €25 million in a full year – for respite. This will ensure that provision continues to expand significantly across the country. It is recognised that families and individuals have different needs and there will therefore be an investment in a range of respite options, including day services and overnight stays.
The 2024-26 action plan for disability services, which is led by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, is a plan to increase capacity in disability services. It also sets out the overall strategic direction for policy development and for the development of services over the next three years. Under this plan, we will be adding capacity to services in 2024 through extra residential services, more day service placements, an increase in personal assistance hours, an expansion of respite staff and more staff for children’s disability services.
I will take a moment to respond to some of the issues raised during this debate.
Deputy Tully inquired about the interdepartmental working group. It is due to report in quarter 3 of this year.
Deputies Verona Murphy, Fitzpatrick, Tully and Sherlock inquired about the calculation behind the €600 million figure supplied by the Department. We can provide further details to them on that.
Deputy Conway-Walsh raised the need for a co-ordinated interdepartmental approach, with a strategy that was rights based and cut across all Departments. Our new Taoiseach, Simon Harris, has prioritised this area. He has established a Cabinet committee on disability to do exactly that.
Numerous Deputies raised the need for access to respite care hours. Funding is in place to provide those, but we need additional staff and services. We are committed to doing that in 2024 in terms of the plan and the increase in residential and day services.
Deputy Sherlock referred to an anomaly in respect of jobseekers applying for carer’s support. I will highlight the matter with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and ask her to examine it.
Interestingly, Deputy Boyd Barrett and others called for a move away from targeted measures towards universal payments. Deputy Boyd Barrett also spoke about the need to examine the threshold for medical cards. We will pass that feedback on to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and to the Minister for Health, whom I assume would need to negotiate any changes with GPs.
Deputy Harkin and many others discussed the need to change the income disregard. That will happen in June.
All contributors spoke about the fantastic work done by carers and Family Carers Ireland. I echo those comments. They do incredible work in my constituency.
The Government is not opposing the motion, and I thank the Deputies for tabling it.
I understand Deputy Shanahan is sharing time.
I am sharing time with Deputy Naughten, who will be along shortly.
It is often said that you can judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable. That observation can also be applied to how a state treats those who provide care to its most vulnerable. One could say that we know the cost of everything and the value of very little. In her opening remarks, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, stated that extending carer’s allowance in the way we are proposing could cost the State up to €600 million per year, but the PBO’s figure is €375 million. Either way, this is still a question of the cost versus value of something.
An amazing statistic is that more than 500,000 individuals in this country are family carers. They may provide care for loved ones because of physical or intellectual disability, physical or emotional trauma that may have been suffered, short-term or long-term illness, or the infirmity and loss of independence that come with great age. In all cases, they are providing care from a basis of family love, not perceived responsibility because no other care options are available to their loved ones. In all cases, they are providing significant benefit to the State, yet they are not being properly recognised for their efforts or for the care burden and costs from which they are protecting the State.
Carers are predominantly female, most often middle aged, and more than half are trying to provide care while also holding down employment. As the Minister of State knows, the number of recognised carers in our society increased by more than 50% between 2016 and 2022. This figure will undoubtedly rise because of our ageing demographics.
Truth be told, having a relative or close friend to provide care is a great blessing indeed, but for many carers, particularly those looking after children with additional needs, the caring responsibility may be the start of decades of responsibility. This has significant and, in some cases, profound implications for their mental wellbeing and financial security.
The present State position, which involves means testing family carers, is both demeaning and inherently unfair. The current assessment of carer's allowance to household income can deem a carer financially dependent on a partner's income. This can make a family carer financially vulnerable but it also denotes no State recognition whatsoever for the Trojan work that they are doing. Our motion today seeks to replace the current system with a non-means-tested scheme which would be based solely on the care needs of the individual care recipient and would recognise the incredible devotion and contribution of these 500,000 family carers in Ireland.
The State of Caring report in 2022 highlighted some harrowing statistics: that 27% of family carers surveyed are caring for more than two people - an incredible burden; that over 70% of carers surveyed experience severe difficulty in accessing State services for at least one of the people for whom they care; and that 80% of carers feel that the value they provide to society is not being recognised. Who could argue with the latter point? Doing meaningful work is an important component in building self-esteem. The fact that the State does not recognise properly the efforts of carers in our society also means that we are creating an emotional burden around our carers. How can we as a State continue to support that?
As part of our motion, we are also asking for the implementation and the establishment of a high-level officials' group to scope out and develop a roadmap for a non-means-tested participation income for family carers. We hope to see that means test completely abolished by 2027. This target date is one that we should not let slip. For too long, this country has failed to recognise the importance of carers in our society. If we are to consider ourselves a just and a caring people, we need to remedy that as soon as possible through legislative change in this House.
By moving this motion, we want to acknowledge the invaluable contribution of half a million carers around this country and give them some small recognition for the valuable work that they are doing by replacing the current system with a non-means-tested scheme for the carer's allowance focusing solely on care needs.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with the mother of a child called Willow. Willow has a life-limiting condition and for the first two weeks after her birth, her parents were planning her funeral. However, last September Willow started school. This milestone was only achieved due to the round-the-clock care provided by her mother, who sacrificed her successful career to become Willow's full-time carer. Despite Willow starting school, her mother had to return to school as well because Willow was being denied the necessary support to manage independently in the school setting. Willow's mother receives €160 a week for this 24-7 care, which she provides 365 days a year. Willow also has a brother for whom his mother is receiving domiciliary care allowance. However, Willow's mother is afraid to apply for the top-up payment for caring for a second person because she fears that the existing €150 a week will be reduced and that is money that she needs to access vital supports for Willow. This is the chilling effect that the means assessment of the carer's allowance is having on carers around the country. People who should be publicly rewarded for the work that they are doing are afraid to apply for what they should be entitled to because of the fear of the consequences.
Throughout my years in this House, I have always dreaded the phone call from a family carer who receives a review form in the post. I must, first, calm them down and allay their fear that a small amount of money that they depend on to pay for the extra heat, the extra transport costs, the electricity costs and the loan repayments for housing adaptations will be cut. On the fear of being pushed beyond breaking point, this review letter dropping inside the front door brings them to the edge of that threshold and is far worse than a court summons. No carer in this country should live in fear of a means test because of the carer's allowance structure as it currently stands, and of dealing with the dread every day of that letter coming through the post. We want to see that fear abolished.
On 18 May 2022, Ms Anna Budayova, Ms Niamh Ryan and Mr. Damien Douglas appeared before the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands. They gave us powerful evidence about the challenges they are facing on a daily basis in providing full-time care for their disabled children. They spoke about the impact that the carer's allowance means test is having on them, on their families and on their caring roles. We need to work towards a financial system for families and carers that is designed around the care provided, not the bank account balance of the carer's spouse. The current eligibility test for this payment is little more than a mean test denying people financial assistance to support them in providing vital services to our society. All three parents spoke about how the reduced rate of means-tested carer's allowance that they receive is so essential for them to manage financially. The current system of means-testing the carer's allowance is unfair as it only considers income and not outgoings. Outgoings such as mortgage, loans for housing adaptations, wheelchair-accessible vans, energy costs and medical equipment that are not considered presently under the means test at a very minimum should be given recognition.
The overall potential number of full-time carers who could benefit from the change we are proposing is approximately 27,000. They are the people who are not in receipt of a payment at present, other than the carer's support grant. It is disingenuous to talk about a cost of over €650 million. The Parliamentary Budget Office has liberally put this at €375 million. That does not take into account the significant administration costs involved in running the carer's allowance system at present and, therefore, we believe that this cost is nearer to €300 million. It can benefit 27,000 carers around the country but, more than that, it can give recognition and an acknowledgement to half a million carers around the country that what they are doing on a daily basis is valued and respected by the State.
I commend the motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.