Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 October 2022
295. Deputy John McGuinness asked the Minister for Social Protection if carer's allowance will be put back into payment for a person (details supplied), in line with the specified timeframe set out in the original decision; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50986/22]
View answerCarer’s benefit (CARB) is a payment made to insured people who leave the workforce or reduce their working hours to care for a person(s) in need of full-time care and attention.
A person can be considered to be providing full-time care and attention where they are engaged in employment, self-employment or on training courses for a maximum of 18.5 hours per week, provided that they can show to the satisfaction of a deciding officer that adequate care has been provided for the care recipient in their absence.
A CARB application was received from the person concerned on 29 Jul 2021 with confirmation from their employer that they were reducing their working hours from 36 hours to 16 hours per week from 6 September 2021 to 6 September 2022 to provide full time care to their mother. The CARB claim was awarded for this period and the person concerned was advised that if they wished to extend the period of CARB payments, they would need to forward confirmation from their employer of the newly agreed leave dates.
To date, my Department has not received a request to extend the CARB claim. Accordingly, the claim was stopped on 7 September 2022. Once the required information is received by my Department, the application will be processed without delay and the person concerned will be notified directly of the outcome.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
