The respite care grant was extended in 2005 to carers other than those in receipt of a carer's allowance, carer's benefit, prescribed relative allowance, constant attendance allowance and domiciliary care allowance. Carers who do not qualify for a grant under one of these schemes may now obtain a grant if they and the person for whom they are caring satisfy certain conditions.
All carers who are in receipt of carer's allowance, carer's benefit, prescribed relative allowance or constant attendance allowance on the first Thursday in June will automatically receive the respite care grant without having to apply for it. Similarly, carers who are getting domiciliary care allowance from the Health Service Executive will automatically receive the respite care grant from the HSE.
A national publicity and information campaign on the scheme was carried out over the past year in order to target effectively those carers providing full-time care and attention and therefore most likely to qualify for the grant. This campaign covered:
—Advertising in the local and national press and on local radio.
—A freephone service operated by my Department.
—Information was distributed to all carers representative groups for use in their publications.
—A presentation was made to the Carers Association's managers network from around the country.
—Application forms, information leaflets and posters were distributed to Local Offices, Branch Offices and to Comhairle for distribution to the Citizen's Information Centres (CICs) network, and a presentation was made to the Department's information officers including those from CICs.
—In addition, from October 2005 to March 2006, information booklets on the respite care grant were on display in over 850 locations including a number of GPs surgeries, Public Health Centres and hospitals.
For this year, all customers who received a respite grant in 2005 are being contacted individually to inform them of their possible entitlement to the grant in 2006 and to verify that their circumstances have not changed since last year.
Following that, the Department will again advertise the scheme in the national and local press. The Department will also provide a Freephone service to outline scheme improvements to customers and to assist them with their applications. Supplies of information booklets and application forms will be available in my Department's local social welfare offices as well as on request from the respite care grant section in Dublin.
In addition, my Department will review, on a case-by-case basis, claims that failed to qualify last year because the carer was working for more than 10 hours per week. People in these circumstances may now qualify as I have extended the maximum number of hours to 15 hours per week from June.
Customers who apply for carer's allowance and who do not qualify for payment as their means exceed the statutory limit, will be contacted in relation to their potential entitlement to the respite care grant payment. They may qualify for that payment as it is not subject to a means test.
In addition to the 2006 scheme, applications will be accepted for the 2005 scheme up to 31 December 2006. A total of some 34,300 respite care grants have been paid by my Department in respect of 2005 and applications for the grant continue to be received. Total expenditure to date is over EUR34 million. I am satisfied that these arrangements will be successful in ensuring that as many eligible carers as possible are made aware of their entitlement to the respite care grant.