Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 24 Sep 2024

It is like a dose of Epsom salts at the moment. I have taken up with the Minister before the issue of the 18.5-hour cap on someone in receipt of the carer's allowance. I have given examples of cases in which the child for whom the carer is caring is in education and the carer could work for more than 18.5 hours a week. The Department should allow flexibility in that limited number of cases for such circumstances.

The Government acknowledges the valuable role family carers play and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. This commitment is recognised in both the programme for Government and the national carers’ strategy. My Department provides a comprehensive package of carers’ income supports including carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the carer’s support grant. Combined spending on all these payments to carers in 2024 is expected to exceed €1.7 billion. The carer’s allowance is a means-tested social assistance income support paid to carers who are caring for people who require full-time care and attention. The means test is used to target the support at those most in need. There are currently 97,407 people in receipt of this payment. The person being cared for must be so incapacitated as to require full-time care and attention and be likely to require this full-time care and attention for at least 12 months. The time spent providing care must not be less than 35 hours per week. However, the carer payments provide flexibility in allowing carers to engage in training, education or work of up to 18.5 hours per week. In effect, a carer can engage in these activities for half of a full-time working week. During this time, adequate provision must be made for the care of the relevant person. Both the full-time care and attention requirement and the 18.5 hour-limitation are contained in the respective legislative provisions of the carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit and the carer’s support grant schemes. I consider the limit of 18.5 hours to represent a reasonable balance between meeting the care recipient's requirement for full-time care and the carer's need to maintain contact with the workforce. Any proposal for further changes to this condition would need to maintain this balance and would have to be considered in a policy and budgetary context.

I accept everything the Minister said. I am talking about a small cohort of people. They are the mothers of children with profound disabilities, intellectual disabilities or mental health issues who are in a training centre or in full-time education. They are out of the home for more than 18.5 hours a week because they are at school or at the training centre. There is no issue in relation to care or the need for care. If that person can avail of education or additional employment - there is already a means test cap so they can only do up to the means test threshold anyway - why can they not work 19 hours in such circumstances, rather than sitting at home looking at the four walls, if they are willing to go out?

It has been increased over the years. It started at ten hours, then went to 15 hours and the most recent increase was to 18.5 hours. We need to strike a balance here because a person needs to provide full-time care and attention and when that 18.5 hours is added to the 34 or 35 hours of care that must be provided, that is a good few hours.

There are a lot of things I would like to do in this budget for carers but I will have to prioritise. That is the reality of the budget process. Increasing the income disregards is something the Deputy raised with me on many occasions.

I increased the income disregards in the last budget and I always look at everything. I have taken a number of steps in recent budgets. In November, a €400 lump sum was paid to people who receive the carer's support grant. A Christmas bonus of a double payment was paid to people who are in receipt of carer's allowance and carer's benefit. I have increased the domiciliary care allowance in successive budgets. It is now €340 per month. It is important to say the domiciliary care allowance is not means tested and goes to everyone who is caring.

What I am looking for here is a small bit of discretion with the social welfare officers rather than having the 18.5 hours set in stone. We are probably speaking about maybe 15 or 20 people in total across the State who would avail of this where their son or daughter is in full-time education or training, he or she is picked up in the morning and dropped home in the evening and for the rest of the week the parent provides full-time care. None of us here can question the level of care and I know that is not what the Minister is doing. What we are looking for here is a small amount of flexibility for these 15 or 20 cases around the country if the parent wants to take part in education for their own mental health to get them out of the home. It benefits everyone and the parent will be able to provide more effective care when their son or daughter comes back from education or training.

A person has to be caring for 35 hours to qualify for the carer's allowance. He or she is allowed to work for 18.5 hours, so that brings it up to 53.5 hours per week. That is a fair week's work, in fairness, when both are done. The Deputy made a point and I do not disagree with him. Sometimes discretion can be great and then sometimes it can land you into a lot of bother, depending on who is interpreting the discretion. I will ask my officials to look into the issue. I always welcome ideas that make things better for people. I will look into the issue but will not make any promises as yet.

This question has come up consistently at our Oireachtas committee from people who are involved in the caring profession such as home support workers, home helps and staff such as those. They find it very difficult to get staff to take on these roles and the social welfare rules, where someone can only work for up to three days per week, acts as a barrier.

My Department delivers a range of supports to help people in receipt of a jobseekers payment to secure and sustain full-time employment. The Intreo employment service works with jobseekers on an individualised basis to identify skills, work experience and work preferences with a view to matching people to suitable job opportunities and to address skills gaps or training needs by referring jobseekers to suitable education and training opportunities or to employment schemes like the work placement experience programme or the community employment scheme. Engagement with Intreo is mandatory for these jobseekers.

Part-time employment is supported through a number of schemes, including casual and systematic short-time work arrangements for people on a jobseeker's payment. A person in receipt of a jobseeker's benefit or allowance payment can work up to three days per week, where he or she is fully unemployed for at least four in any seven consecutive days.

The part-time job incentive scheme is available to people who are long-term unemployed to allow them to take up part-time employment for less than 24 hours per week and receive a weekly income supplement. Participants are expected to continue to make efforts to find full-time work.

In addition, the working family payment provides an income top-up to employees with dependent children on low earnings who work for a minimum of 38 hours per fortnight, or 19 hours per week. While Intreo aims to support jobseekers to secure full-time employment, in the absence of this part-time employment can be a stepping stone on the pathway to full-time employment. I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

The problem is that this concept of working three days per week comes from when I was in short pants. The reality is someone can work up to 24 hours per week and still receive a social welfare payment if he or she does it over three days. However, if someone works two hours per day as a home help for five days per week, he or she cannot get it. The difficulty is that if he or she is working less than 19 hours per week, they are not entitled to the family income supplement either and so are caught on both sides.

These are false barriers to encouraging people back into the workforce, to increasing their hours in work and, it is hoped, to ultimately getting full-time work. We are in an economy where we have full employment. Is it not about time we started to count the number of hours rather than number of days that people work?

The Deputy mentioned the case of people who want to do home help work for two or three hours per morning five days per week as opposed to working for three full days. This issue has been raised with me by these organisations as well. The aim is to get people into full-time work, not to subsidise employers because that could have unintended consequences.

There are more people working than ever before and the Deputy acknowledged that. Unemployment has never been lower and we continue to look at all of the different supports to try to get people back into work. There have been a number of different schemes. There was the pilot scheme to extend community employment eligibility to qualified adults. That commenced in 2023 and has now been rolled out right across the country. The aim is to bring more people who are currently unemployed, but dependent on welfare payments, into the workforce. The process will advise and open up opportunities for individuals to participate in community employment schemes, providing the qualified adults with valuable work experience, and that particularly applies to women. I will come back in again if I am over time.

The fact is that under the social welfare code as it stands a person can work for eight hours per day, three days per week - that is, 24 hours of work - and still receive a social welfare support under the jobseeker's payment. However, a person cannot work for four hours per day, five days per week. He or she is denied it even though they are working four hours fewer per week as a result of that. This model was designed in an era of full-time employment. We have an awful lot more people who are working flexible hours or part of the week and the whole culture of employment has changed. The whole social welfare code should reflect that and that flexibility should be built into it.

I have considered this issue but I do not want to be in the position where we are subsidising employers to give people fewer hours either. I want to be conscious of that and we have looked at many different ways to incentivise people to get back to full-time work because that is where we want them. I know this is an issue and it is certainly something we have looked at. I will look at it again but it applies to women in particular who want to do a few hours of work in the mornings before the children come home from school. It is as simple as that.

However, again, this particularly applies to women who want to do a few hours in the morning before their children come home from school. It is as simple as that.

I want to speak to the issue of care and the fact that care is so vital in our society at the moment. One in eight Irish people currently provide unpaid care. It is a tremendously tough job. It is often 24-7. It can be extremely demanding. How can we start to help, in the context of income, people who are providing care? Many of them are means-tested and many of them are suffering because they deliver care.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 11 and 50 together. Since my appointment as Minister, I have made significant improvements to the means test for carer's allowance. I have taken a range of actions to improve supports for carers over recent years through increasing payment rates and income disregards and providing once-off and extra double payments. It is important to acknowledge that there are a range of other supports for carers provided by the Department of Social Protection which are not based on a means assessment, such as the carer’s support grant, carer’s benefit and domiciliary care allowance.

In budget 2022, the income disregards were increased to €350 for a single person and to €750 for carers with a spouse or partner. The capital and savings disregard was also increased, from €20,000 to €50,000. This equates to €100,000 in the case of a couple. As part of budget 2024, the weekly income disregards were further increased, from €350 to €450 for a single person and from €750 to €900 for carers with a spouse or partner. These are the highest disregards in the social welfare system. Notwithstanding these improvements, I have established an interdepartmental working group with the Department of Health and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to examine and review the system of means test for carer's payments. The work of the group is ongoing and I expect it to report to me in the coming weeks.

The removal of the means assessment for carer’s allowance would not only change the nature of the scheme as an income support, it would also have significant policy and budgetary implications and would reduce the scope for the Department to provide income supports to lower-income households. Removing the means test for carer’s allowance in its entirety would create a new universal social protection scheme for those meeting the scheme’s basic caring condition. It is estimated that it would give rise to additional costs of some €600 million, rising to between €880 million and €2 billion per annum in total.

That is really important to say. We also accept that the care that is actually provided saves the State a considerable amount of money. The Minister would have to recognise that the tens of thousands of men and women throughout the State who are caring are saving the State possibly billions of euro in terms of care that would otherwise have to be provided by the State. We know that individuals who provide care suffer significant income loss as a result of that.

It is important to note that this year the Government brought about a referendum for a constitutional amendment. In the referendum on that constitutional amendment, it said that there would be a new dawn for carers in Ireland. That was the commitment the Government made in March to the carers around the country. Obviously, at this stage, the budget is just a few days away. I encourage the Minister to fulfil that promise that there will be a new dawn for carers in this country by actually getting rid of the means test for carers.

I thank the Deputy. I recognise and value the work of our carers. I mean that. We all know carers who are doing wonderful work. My Department will spend more than €1.7 billion this year on our support payments to carers. If you look at my record, improving supports for our carers has been a key priority for me as Minister for Social Protection.

I might also say that I was delighted to introduce the new scheme to provide pension contributions to long-term carers from the start of January. There has been a strong interest in it. As I outlined, there is a large number of carers, mainly women, who will qualify for a pension because of the changes we have made. That is to be welcomed and I think it was the right thing to do. I know that number will grow further and further into the future. We have that scheme in place. I acknowledge the support I have received from Family Carers Ireland to make these changes. I have engaged with it regularly and I do listen to it.

I will be honest with the Minister - there is a crisis in care right across the State at the moment. If you look at childcare, for example, childcare units are closing on a weekly basis. Even though the people who provide childcare are professionals, they get some of the lowest wages in the State. Children in State care are in crisis at the moment. The State is putting children who are in State care into unregulated special emergency accommodation and many of those children are going missing and, according to studies that have been done by UCD, are being exposed to sexual exploitation. Nursing homes are also closing at the moment, so-----

The question is, do we value care that is being delivered, sometimes by family members and oftentimes by non-family members, to people who are in need right across the country? The measure of the value a government places on a particular issue is through the financial contribution it will make to the delivery of that care. It is very clear that many people are suffering financially because of the delivery of that care. All I request is that there not be a financial penalty for those who deliver care.

The Government and I personally value the work that carers do. As I said, this year alone €1.7 billion be spent on supporting our carers. We have done a lot, including through lump sum payments for carers, pensions for carers and major changes to the means test. Weekly payments have been increased by €29 over the past three years. I assure the Deputy that supporting our carers will be a key priority for me in next week’s budget.

Emergency accommodation is an issue that has been brought up with me by a number of groups. There are pilot programmes running in some areas of the country through which people who are living in emergency accommodation are able to get free travel. Very often, they are provided accommodation that is very far from areas where there might be schools, etc. It is a significant constraint on their ability to access schools, services and so on.

I thank the Deputy for his question. The free travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for those eligible under the scheme. There are more than one million customers with direct eligibility. In budget 2024 we expanded the free travel scheme to support people who are medically certified as unable to drive. The estimated expenditure on free travel in 2024 is €104 million.

The objective of the free travel scheme is to ensure older people and people with disabilities remain active within their community by providing access to existing public and private transport routes. It is important to note, however, that, in general, access to a free travel pass for those aged under 66 is a secondary benefit linked to a person being in receipt of certain primary social protection payments or due to certain medical conditions. My Department does provide additional needs payments as part of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme for people who have an urgent need which they cannot meet from their own resources. These payments are available through our community welfare officers and include help towards recurring travel costs that cannot be met from the person's own resources and are deemed to be necessary.

Every decision is based on consideration of the circumstances of the case, taking account of the nature and extent of the need and of the resources of the person concerned. I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

This has been brought to my attention by Good Shepherd Cork, a charity based in Cork and one the Minister of State will be familiar with, that runs shelters such as Edel House, Shanaway House, and others. The issue primarily arises with children as it impacts on their ability to access school and other services. The emergency accommodation could be located far away and might not be proximate to the school. School transport is organised on the basis of routes. They are planned according to the number of children and the nearest school and second nearest school. School transport might no longer be viable or might not work for a child with a new address. The conclusion of the Good Shepherd service is that the only logical way of ensuring that these children are supported with their transport costs is the provision of a free travel pass. I know the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, has provided Leap cards in its area but the Good Shepherd service and others have not been successful in getting that expanded to other areas. Will the Department consider whether free travel could be extended to children and families in those circumstances, as it might be a viable way to ensure that they do not miss out on school?

I am aware of the case that has been made by the Good Shepherd service, which contacted me directly about this as well. I can see why someone who is trying to solve a particular problem would jump to the free travel pass from the Department of Social Protection. We looked into it. The school transport scheme is the obvious option and the question is how to bridge the gap between people in those situations and the school transport scheme.

My understanding is that there was some engagement with Tusla which, on occasion, has knowledge of and connection with people in emergency accommodation, and that it provided a sum of money to facilitate the purchase of Leap cards for people connected with that charity. That was obviously a temporary measure. There is perhaps scope in the Department of Education to develop a kind of protocol for people who, at a minimum, are in touch with Tusla but perhaps are in touch with homeless services. I always seek to bridge the gap where it is smallest, and I think that is where the smallest gap is.

I am not convinced by that. Will the Minister of State and his departmental officials meet with Good Shepherd Cork to explore the matter? The service supports families whose children have missed between 50 and 70 school days in an academic year. We have had debates on homelessness and talked about children doing their homework on a hotel bed or in a family hub. These are very challenging circumstances in which to raise a child.

An added complication is that many of these accommodations do not have space for cars and many people do not have cars to bring a child to school. It is a significant challenge and we must ensure that these children do not lose out on their education.

I am not sure that school transport is necessarily the best solution. I will make up an illustrative example from a part of the world the Minister of State is familiar with. If a child in Grenagh or Rathduff, for example, were offered emergency accommodation after eviction it would probably be on the Western Road. The school route would probably go through Grenagh, Rathduff and into Carrignavar or Blarney. How is that bus going to reroute to the Western Road and bring people out there? That is hardly going to work, given that existing school transport routes take a different direction.

I take the Deputy's point. We should look at every measure we can to alleviate the difficulties people in homeless accommodation experience. The review of school transport envisages that we would have an integrated system where school transport is connected to the public transport system so that, one way or another, every route in the public system would be available to whoever wants or needs it. That is worth exploring further.

The policy aim of free travel in our Department is quite different from the aim of school transport. In 1967 it was introduced to relieve the difficult circumstances of old people who live alone. More recently, in 1998, the then Minister for Social and Family Affairs described the purpose as to encourage older people to remain active in the community as well. I say that because there is a policy in another Department that is much closer to what we want to achieve for those people in homeless accommodation. Something could be done with local authorities as well. The Deputy mentioned the DRHE is doing it in Dublin. Let us see if the local authorities are on for doing it in other areas as well.

This question relates to people taking time from work to care, very often for family members, and enabling them to qualify for a pension. There are situations involving older people in particular who take time off later in their career who cannot fulfil the 20-year criterion by the time they reach pension age.

This Government acknowledges the important role that family carers play and is fully committed to supporting them in that role. Accordingly, the State pension system gives significant recognition to those whose work history includes extended periods outside of paid employment, often to raise families or in a full-time caring role. Despite these measures, some long-term carers of incapacitated dependants faced barriers in accessing the State pension - contributory.

Based on a programme for Government commitment, the Pensions Commission was asked to consider how people who have provided long-term care for incapacitated dependants can be accommodated within the State pension system. The commission engaged in a public consultation process and had the benefit of presentations from Family Carer's Ireland and the National Women's Council in forming its recommendations on the proposals and the period of care. The commission recommended that long-term carers should be given access to the State pension - contributory - and defined long-term caring as caring for more than 20 years.

I was very pleased to implement this important recommendation and, since January 2024, long-term carer's contributions can be awarded to a person who has cared for an incapacitated person for a period of 20 years or more. These contributions will be treated the same as paid contributions for State pension - contributory - entitlement only and can be used to fill any gaps in a person's contribution record, including satisfying the minimum 520 contributions required for eligibility.

Where a person has less than 20 years caring, they may be entitled to avail of up to 20 years home-caring periods or homemaker's scheme, subject to existing qualification conditions of having 520 paid contributions. These measures combined strike the right balance between ensuring that all carers can access the State pension system, while ensuring that the system remains sustainable.

I acknowledge that a great effort has been made and that it does work for so many people who were carrying out that hugely important caring role, but there are situations that arise where a person cannot make up 20 years. Those cases very likely involve people who took on the caring role later in life – in their 40s, 50s or later – and they cannot make up the 20 years by the time they reach pension age.

A case in point is Mike, who worked with the HSE. He retired in his 50s in order to care for his wife and he will be unable to make up the 20 years by the time he reaches pension age, and therefore he will not qualify and will have a very reduced income. He will face a situation where he is means-tested, which will leave him in a disadvantaged position. Such carers play a hugely significant role.

I thank the Deputy. I take the point he makes that if a person takes on a caring role later in life, he or she will not have spent 20 years caring.

We introduced this in January this year. Like all of these schemes, it has to bed in. I followed the recommendations of the Pensions Commission. As I said, it carried out a lot of consultation. I am always happy to look at these things. Our intention is to help people who genuinely had to give up work and cannot go back to work because of their caring responsibilities. I am happy to take a look at that. As I said, the scheme has only been in place since January and it is important that it beds in.

I thank the Minister. The modifications that were made were very beneficial, especially for people who are caring for children throughout much of their life. This situation arises for people who take on a caring role later in life, in their 40s, 50s and 60s. I would welcome an opportunity to review the scheme and include it in any of the next steps that will be taken. Is there any indication of a timeframe or was review carried out as part of that process? It would be helpful if there was any indication on that.

The Deputy outlined a specific case where someone had retired and was going to look after his wife. There are situations where a person with fewer than 20 years of caring may be entitled to avail of home caring periods or the homemaker scheme, subject to existing qualification conditions. I do not think the person in the case the Deputy mentioned would qualify under that scheme. This scheme has only been in place since January this year. Like all schemes in my Department, we will review it and determine whether we can do something better or make changes. I take on board the case the Deputy has outlined and I will speak to my officials about it. I will not give him a promise that it will be fixed straight away, but we will certainly look at it.

The Minister will be familiar with the issue of the widow's and widower's pension. There was a Supreme Court decision in January this year. On 18 June, the Minister said it was her intention to enact legislation before the Dáil recess and that a small amendment was required. That has not happened. I am looking for an update on the extension of the pension payment to non-married and cohabiting couples on account of the Supreme Court decision.

I thank the Deputy. Under the law, as currently enacted, entitlement to a widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner’s contributory pension is only available to a surviving partner who was party to a marriage or civil partnership. On 22 January, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on the entitlement of an unmarried cohabitant to a widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner’s contributory pension. The Supreme Court judgment overruled a previous High Court decision and found in favour of the claimant and his children.

In simple terms, the court found that section 124 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 is inconsistent with the Constitution insofar as it excluded the claimant from the category of persons entitled to benefit from it. The court reached that conclusion on the basis of the equality guarantee contained in Article 40.1 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court judgment notes that in order to resolve the issue raised by the judgment, a legislative amendment is required.

On 18 June, I obtained Government approval for the priority drafting of the legislative changes required to respond to the Supreme Court decision. The general scheme of a Bill was referred to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for priority drafting, and to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands for pre-legislative scrutiny. The committee issued its report on 26 July. My officials are now working closely with the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to develop and finalise this legislation and I intend to introduce it to the Oireachtas as soon as possible once that is done. I trust that clarifies the issue.

A substantial number of people are affected by this. There are 150,000 cohabiting couples in the State, 75,000 of whom have children. There are a number of questions. Treoir is one organisation which is raising these issues and the questions are as yet unsettled and require clarification. I hope it will be possible to get clarification on that. I will be able to come in again in a minute, so I will break my questions into two parts.

My primary question is whether cohabiting couples without dependent children will be covered in the same way that married couples without children are. Will cohabiting couples who lost their partner in 2020 receive back payments if they had a claim turned down, as happened to the gentleman who took the original case, Mr. John O'Meara? How many years of cohabitation will be required for cohabiting couples to qualify in the future?

I thank the Deputy. He has asked me a lot of questions and I will have to come back with some of the answers because this is quite technical. My officials are doing a lot of work to cover some of the particular issues the Deputy has raised. This is complex enough, and want to make sure we get it right.

The Deputy said there are about 150,000 cohabiting couples. I asked my officials how many people they think will be entitled to the payment and they advised me that it is very difficult to predict the number of people who may have an entitlement under the scheme as there is limited data on these couples. The Deputy has provided one figure, but the analysis carried out by my Department estimated that 500 new cohabitant recipients are expected annually during the initial years.

There is a bit of work to be done on this. As I said, my officials are working on this. I have met Mr. O'Meara, who found himself in an awful situation. I am glad we have been able to work on this and can bring forward legislation in due course that will reflect a modern society.

We do not have legislation yet; we have a general scheme. If we can get a better sense of when the legislation will come forward, that would be welcome. I appreciate that there are some technical details to be worked out, but the primary issue is which families will be eligible and how long people need to be cohabiting before they are entitled to the payment. If the Minister can answer those questions, that would be excellent.

I know Treoir has been in touch with the Minister several times and has not received any clarification from her on these issues. I refer in particular to the issue of backdating, how many years will be required and which families will be eligible. I would appreciate if the Minister and her office would engage with Treoir to ensure that these questions are answered. She said she and her Department are examining the pre-legislative scrutiny report, which is a necessary part of the process. Will we have legislation before Christmas or the election, whatever is sooner?

I will bring forward the proposed legislation as soon as I possibly can. Under the draft legislation, it is proposed that a person who becomes eligible for the scheme will be able to claim irrespective of the date of the death of their partner. It is also proposed that claims will be backdated to the date of the judgment of January 2024 when the existing law was found to be inconsistent with the Constitution, where the date of death preceded that date.

The Deputy asked a few other questions. I just do not have the information on the exact details, but I will ask my officials to engage with Treoir to cover off some of those things to make sure we get it right. It is quite complex, given all the different scenarios.

My question relates to the rate of child benefit payment per child and whether there is an opportunity to have it increased to support families who are under pressure. When the payment was first introduced, it was a useful step in tackling child poverty. Can the rate of child benefit be increased in the forthcoming budget?

Child benefit is a monthly payment made to families with children up to the age of 16 years. The payment continues to be paid in respect of children until their 19th birthday where they are in full-time education or have a disability. The extension of child benefit to 18-year-olds was one of my key priorities in budget 2024 and I am very pleased that we were able to bring that change in from May this year.

Child benefit is paid at €140 per month. Twins are paid at one and a half times the standard monthly rate for each child, that is, €210 per month for each twin. All other multiple births are paid at double the standard monthly rate for each child, that is, €280 per child. In budgets 2023 and 2024, I provided for a double month of child benefit to be paid in respect of each child. Families received these additional payments in December 2022 and December 2023. These additional payments followed a €100 lump sum, which was paid to parents in respect of each child in June 2023 as part of the package of measures provided for in spring 2023 to assist families with the cost of living. Child benefit is currently paid to approximately 677,000 families in respect of approximately 1.2 million children, with an estimated expenditure of €2.2 billion for 2024.

In addition to child benefit, families on low incomes may be able to avail of the increase for a qualified child with primary social welfare payments; the working family payment for low-paid employees with children; and the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. These schemes provide targeted assistance that is directly linked to household income and thereby support low-income families with children. Child benefit is kept under review in the context of the annual budget. I trust this brings some light to the matter.

I acknowledge the huge step that was taken in allowing full-time students to hold on to child benefit. I had raised the issue with the Minister, as did many of my colleagues. It was a positive move that it was included in the budget.

The one-off payments are just that. They are not ongoing over the years. When child benefit was originally introduced in the 1940s, it had a huge impact on household income and child poverty, which was very much reflected in mortality rates. Some families are under pressure, many of whom do not qualify for other social welfare payments and therefore are not able to access such payments as the increase for a qualified child. An increase in the rate would be a support to them. It is a measure I ask the Minister to examine closely to see whether there is a possibility of supporting families in that situation.

I thank Deputy Moynihan and acknowledge the support he and others gave me in increasing the age to the 19th birthday. That made a big difference. It brought a lot of children in, including some who were still in secondary school and were able to get that support. It is a much-needed support. It is a universal payment. Some people say it should be universal, while others say there should be targeted measures. All I can say is that in all my days working, the children's allowance, which is now called child benefit, has been a very useful payment and has made a huge difference to a lot of mothers, to be honest. The rate is currently €140. We gave the double payment two years in a row and a lot of people told me it was nice to have the few bob in their pockets before Christmas because there are always an extra few bills that have to be paid. I keep all these matters under review and I will probably reveal more next week.

I will focus on the particular group who do not qualify for the various social welfare payments such as child dependant payments. Child benefit is probably the only social welfare payment going into the house and it is a hugely significant part of the overall household budget. It has not been increased in many years from the €140 rate. If she were to make a change in that, the Minister would be supporting all these other families who do not qualify for social welfare. The various bodies that have examined the different budgets have identified that the people on the lower income deciles and those on the higher income deciles benefited, but the middle four deciles, who do not qualify for social welfare and pay for many things, are under pressure and are not gaining as others have. Will the Minister see whether there is a way to support those families with a key component of the household budget, the child benefit rate?

The Deputy is correct that there is a cohort in the middle that does not have any other supports and the child benefit payment is important. Some people have said to me that people with high incomes get the same payment, but I have met a lot more people in the middle income bracket than millionaires over the years. It is an important payment. It is €140 with a double payment last year. That equates to slightly more than a €10 per month increase. These things have to be looked at in the context of the budget. I know the value of this payment for households. It makes a difference and means a lot.

I will keep it short and sweet. We had a lot of discussion about the Green Paper and all that went with it. The Minister correctly identified that there were shortcomings in the approach outlined, however well intentioned. However, there is a cost to disability that has long been identified in various reports. We need to come back to how that can be addressed. How does the Minister now propose to proceed in that regard?

I published the Green Paper on Disability Reform in September last year. The Green Paper sought to reform my Department's system of disability payments to better target supports and better account for the cost of disability. The Green Paper was a consultation document. Feedback from the public consultation raised concerns about its proposals. In particular, people questioned whether it was appropriate to reform the system of disability payments and employment supports separate from a wider consultation on other challenges faced by people with disabilities, including housing, transport, health and education. I listened to these concerns and in April I announced that I would not proceed any further with the Green Paper proposals.

The Taoiseach has established a Cabinet committee on children, education and disability. Any reform of disability payments will now be considered as part of this broader review of disability matters on a whole-of-government basis. Officials in my Department are currently analysing the feedback collated during the Green Paper process. This feedback will be shared with the committee.

It must also be noted that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is co-ordinating the development of a new national disability strategy with a whole-of-government approach. The costs of disability will be addressed within this strategy. My Department has been actively involved in the development of this new strategy.

I thank the Minister. I do not have a whole lot to add at this time. During the process associated with the Green Paper, I never questioned the bona fides of the Department or its officials. It included a lot of well-motivated proposals. However, some of the concerns people had were well grounded, including those reflecting challenges that have arisen in other jurisdictions. It was the right decision to withdraw those proposals.

In terms of our approach as we go forward, from what the Minister has said, it is at a very early stage of imagination in terms of Cabinet subcommittees and so on. It is right that the consultation documents should be gone through because many organisations put a fair bit of effort into their submissions, notwithstanding that the Green Paper was withdrawn. One of the concerns raised was regarding the process and the notion of "nothing about us without us". People did not feel they were involved from the very start. Will the Minister comment on how she might ensure in future that any disability payments will be co-designed with disability organisations and people with disabilities?

I engaged extensively with the disability organisations, which involved many meetings. I will continue to do that. As part of budget 2024, I introduced significant supports for people with disabilities, including a €400 once-off payment for disability allowance, blind pension, invalidity pension and carer's support grant recipients in November 2023 to address the high cost of living, a €200 lump-sum living allowance payment, a €300 lump-sum fuel allowance, a Christmas bonus and a double payment to all persons in receipt of a long-term disability payment. There was also the January cost-of-living bonus double payment to all persons getting a long-term disability payment, as well as a €12 increase in the maximum personal rate of weekly disability payments. In April 2024, I reduced the minimum weekly hours threshold, from 21 to 15 hours, for employers to avail of the wage subsidy scheme. I also extended free travel to people medically certified as unfit to drive. That was an issue Deputy Aindrias Moynihan pursued aggressively. He was after me about it all the time. It started off with people who have epilepsy and it was very much welcomed. I worked on it with the epilepsy groups and it benefited others as well. It is a good measure and I am glad it is in place.

I commend the Minister's announcement during the summer, in the Hodson Bay Hotel, down the road from me, regarding the work and access programme. It is a very positive development that we are trying to actively engage with employers to put the supports in place to increase participation by people with a disability within the workforce.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I am very aware of the importance of employment for disabled people. My Department has a number of supports available to assist them. Through our nationwide network of Intreo centres, we provide a case-managed employment service for jobseekers with disabilities. The person works with an employment personal adviser with a view to agreeing a suitable personal progression plan to access the full range of employment supports available. The Department contracts specialist employment services, called EmployAbility, to provide both pre-employment and in-employment support and assistance for disabled people and a recruitment and job-matching service for employers. Early engagement is targeted at recipients of a disability payment. It involves the public employment service actively engaging with people with disabilities at the earliest opportunity, on a voluntary basis, and offering supports to assist them in achieving their employment ambitions.

In December 2023, I announced the establishment of the new WorkAbility programme to support the employment of people with disabilities under the European Social Fund Plus. The programme has an overall budget of up to €36.29 million and will run from January 2024 to December 2028. It aims to support up to 13,000 disabled people to progress their training and employment ambitions over its lifetime. It will be delivered by 56 local and community organisations nationwide.

On 30 July, I launched the work and access scheme in Athlone. The scheme offers seven supports to help to reduce or remove barriers in the workplace for people with a disability and allow them to get a job or stay in work. The supports include funding for a workplace needs assessment, communication supports and equipment. Funding is also available to employers for workplace adaptations and disability awareness training. The work and access scheme is open to all non-public sector employers, including the self-employed and people working in the community and voluntary sector. Supports are available for both business premises and remote workplaces. I have allocated an additional €1 million a year to implement the work and access programme.

I commend the initiative. Someone on a disability allowance payment can receive up to €165 per week in employment. That is the incentive provided under the initiative. My concern is that once people go over that threshold, they will be taxed at 50%. The wealthiest people in this country are not taxed at 50% but we are taxing people on disability allowance who go out to work. They include, for example, people with intellectual disabilities and so forth. If they earn more than €165 a week, we will tax them at 50%. I want to see this penal taxation of earnings up to €375 reviewed and reduced.

I launched the work and access programme in the Hodson Bay Hotel. It was very encouraging to see the number of people working in the hotel who had taken up the scheme. It has made a difference to many people's lives. It is a great scheme. I commend the employers who have engaged actively with it, the Hodson Bay Hotel being a prime example.

An income disregard of €165 per week is applied, with tapering of earnings between €165 and €375. A person can earn a maximum of €505.10 per week and keep a portion of his or her disability payment. People in receipt of invalidity pension can transfer to partial capacity benefit to return to or take up employment. The personal rate of payment of partial capacity benefit is based on a medical assessment of a person's restriction regarding their capacity to work.

I do not set the tax rates. That is a matter the Deputy will have to take up with the Minister for Finance.

The carer's allowance scheme is the main means by which the Department provides income support to carers in the community. In 2024, expenditure on the scheme is estimated to be more than €1.1 billion. Since my appointment as Minister, I have made a number of significant improvements to the means test for carer's allowance. In June 2022, the income disregards were increased from €332.50 to €350 for a single person and from €665 to €750 for carers with a spouse or partner.

The capital and savings disregard for the carer's allowance means assessment was also increased from €20,000 to €50,000. In the case of a couple, this equates to €100,000. As part of budget 2024, the weekly income disregard was further increased from €350 to €450 for a single person and from €750 to €900 for carers with a spouse or a partner. I was the first Minister in many years to increase these disregards. This means that carer's allowance has the highest disregards of any weekly payment in the social welfare system.

However, removing the means test, as suggested by the Deputy, would not benefit those carers who rely solely on the payment and have no additional income. It is also important to acknowledge that a range of other supports for carers are provided by my Department that are not based on a means assessment, such as the carer's support grant, carer's benefit and the domiciliary care allowance. Removing the means test for carer's allowance in its entirety would give rise to additional costs of more than €600 million. Taking account of estimates of inflows, this could increase to between €880 million and €2 billion a year.

As always, I keep all these matters under review and they will fall to be considered in the context of the budget.

I acknowledge the Minister's work. As she has pointed out, she was one of the first Ministers to make changes in this area for many years. As she knows, however, this is a matter that is close to my heart. I have been working with Family Carers Ireland. It has refuted the statistics she has given, in particular relating to the cost. It has estimated that the total cost of abolishing the carer's allowance means test would be approximately €389.4 million. That is much lower than what the Minister has estimated. She has pointed to those whom this measure would still leave without access to the payment or who would be punished in some ways with the expansion but a number of carers are not able to get any support other than the carer's support grant. Last year, the number was 319 for County Clare and it was 5,500 nationally. I was wondering what the number would be for this year, if the Minister has that to hand. Those are the families that are still being left without.

I absolutely recognise and value the work of our carers. My Department will spend in excess of €1.7 billion this year on support payments to carers. Carers have been a key priority for me as Minister for Social Protection. I acknowledge the support I have had from Family Carers Ireland to make changes such as the new pension contributions for long-term carers from the start of January. There is a strong interest in that. As I outlined in my initial reply, there are already a large number of carers, mainly women, who are qualifying for a pension because of the changes we have made. That number will continue to grow now that we have the scheme in place. In recent budgets, I have supported the carers in a number of different ways. They will be a priority for me as I approach this budget as well.

I appreciate that and, again, I acknowledge the work the Minister has done. It is not about this term, however; it is about the fact that the carers are coming from a very low bar. Some 69% who took part in the Family Carers Ireland survey find it difficult to make ends meet. There is an issue with loneliness as well. The long-standing issues and the challenges that carers face, are down to what I and Family Carers Ireland call casualties of policies. They have to fight for so much support and so many services throughout their period of caring. It would be fantastic if they had one fewer fight to fight. I know it is a big undertaking, and I recognise that the Minister values their contribution, but there are 500,000 carers in the country who are saving the State €20 billion, and we have quite a surplus this year.

The calculations the Minister has provided are quite considerable. What is the basis on which she is calculating the additional inflow? How much of an additional inflow would we be talking about for both the €800 million scenario and the €2 billion scenario? What is the kind of inflow that we would be looking at, according to her calculations?

If the means test is abolished completely, many more people will apply for the payment. The officials have estimated that and have given me those figures. I take them in good faith. I can get further details on them.

It is important to note that, only since June of this year, I increased the limits again such that a couple can earn up to €900 per week and have €50,000 in savings and still qualify for the full carer's allowance payment. The reality, however, is that no matter where I draw the line, there will always be some people who will fall the other side of it. I do not want to see those people left behind either. I know women who have given up their job to care for a child with disabilities but who, because the husband works, do not qualify for any payment. That is not right, and I accept that. The carer who provides should be recognised. That is why I have set up an interdepartmental group with the Department of Health to examine the means test entirely. Abolishing the means test would cost a lot of money - €600 million. I know the economy is going well, but we have to prioritise resources. That is just the way it is. It is very hard to see how one could do all of what Deputy Wynne is asking for in one budget alone in terms of the cost of removing the means test.