The main income supports to carers provided by my Department are Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance and the Carer’s Support Grant. Spending on these payments is expected to amount to over €1.7 billion this year.
The Carer’s Allowance scheme is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers in the community. In 2024 the expenditure on the Carer’s Allowance scheme is estimated to be over €1.1 billion.
Carer’s Allowance is a means tested social assistance payment awarded to those carers who are caring for certain people whose disability is such that they require full-time care and attention.
The Irish social welfare system is underpinned by a general principle of one person, one payment. Normally people qualifying for two social welfare payments only receive the higher payment for which they are eligible. However, there are a limited number of exceptions where a person may receive another payment.
One such exception is half-rate Carer’s Allowance. Introduced in 2007, this arrangement allows people in receipt of particular social welfare payments, who are providing full-time care and attention, to retain their main payment and receive another payment, depending on their means, the maximum of which is equivalent to a half-rate Carer’s Allowance. Therefore, a person who may have an underlying entitlement to another social welfare payment, can transfer to that payment and continue to receive up to a half-rate Carer’s Allowance payment. This arrangement is legislated for and applies to almost all weekly social welfare payments and to people in receipt of qualified adult allowances.
Recipients of Jobseeker’s Allowance or Benefit are not eligible given the job seeking nature of these payments. However, a person may be a qualified adult on these payments and receive a half-rate Carer’s Allowance.
At the end of September, there were 97,366 recipients of Carer's Allowance. Of these, 45,918 people were in receipt of a half-rate payment, of whom some 15,949 are in receipt of a State Pension. This means that these recipients, including pensioners, are already receiving a full weekly social welfare payment on another scheme in addition to another weekly social welfare payment called the half rate carer’s payment.
As part of a range of measures for family carers, I announced in Budget 2025, the rate of Carer’s Allowance will increase by €12 in January bringing the rate for those aged under 66 and caring for one person to €260 per week and to €298 for those aged 66 and over and caring for one person.
It is not possible at this time to provide the breakdown of the detailed costing requested by the Deputy. This is because each half-rate recipient, depending on their means, receives a payment the maximum of which is equivalent to a half-rate Carer’s Allowance, therefore the provision of such a costing would require a lengthy review of the amount of half-rate applied to the individual 45,918 claimant cases.
However, an estimated costing based on overall numbers is provided in tabular form below.
• These calculations are based on the additional cost if all 15,949 carers in receipt of a State Pension and half-rate Carer’s Allowance payment of €223.50 or €298 respectively.
• The additional cost if the remaining half-rate recipients (29,969) received a weekly payment of €195 or €260 respectively.
• Both additional costs are provided on the basis that each recipient will be in receipt of the full amount of the applicable half-rate Carer’s Allowance as outlined by the Deputy, i.e. an additional 75% or an additional 100%.
It is important to note that these costings are estimates based on current administrative data. They take no account of year-on-year increases to the payments.
State Pension half-rate recipients additional cost
|
Rate
|
Additional Cost
|
|
75%
|
€61,786,426
|
|
100%
|
€123,572,852
|
Other Social Welfare Payment half-rate recipients’ additional cost
|
Rate
|
Additional Cost
|
|
75%
|
€101,295,220
|
|
100%
|
€202,590,440
|
The provision of either rate as proposed would have implications for overall spending and as such could only be considered in an overall policy and Budgetary context.
I trust that this clarifies the issue for the Deputy.
