Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 September 2024
218. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Social Protection the annual cost to the Exchequer of extending the 18.5-hour ceiling for people in receipt of the carer's allowance who want to undertake training or education while providing full-time care by 1.5 hours, by 3 hours, by 4.5 hours, by 6 hours, by 7.5 hours, and by 9 hours, in tabular form. [37184/24]
View answerMy 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. At the end of August, there were 97,407 people in receipt of Carer's Allowance. Combined spending on all these payments to carers in 2024 is expected to exceed €1.7 billion.
Carer’s Allowance is the main scheme by which the department provides income support to carers in the community. Carer’s Allowance is a means tested social assistance payment awarded to those carers who are caring for certain people who require full-time care and attention. The means test is used to target the support to those most in need.
The primary objective of the payment is to provide an income support to carers whose earning capacity is substantially reduced as a consequence of their caring responsibilities and, in so doing, to support the ongoing care of the person in respect of whom care is being provided.
A primary qualifying condition for the carer income supports provided, is that the applicant provides full-time care and attention to a person in need of such care. 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.
While carer support payments are premised on the provision of full-time care and attention by the carer, they also provide flexibility in terms of allowing carers to engage in work, training or education up to 18.5 hours per week. This was increased from 15 hours as part of Budget 2020. 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 Carer’s Support Grant schemes.
The 18.5-hour limitation represents a reasonable balance between meeting the requirement for providing full-time care for the care recipient and the needs of the carer to engage in education, training or employment, thereby supporting a carer’s continued attachment to the workforce and broader social inclusion. In effect, a carer can engage in these activities for half of a full-time working week.
The main cost elements of a proposal to increase the threshold would arise from new claimants who are not currently eligible and who do not apply for the allowance because of the 18.5 hours condition. It is not known to the Department the number of people engaged in education or training who could become eligible as a consequence of increasing the hours threshold, as outlined by the Deputy, and therefore an estimate of the costs can not be provided.
Finally, any changes to the eligibility conditions for any of the carer related statutory schemes operated by my department would need to be addressed in an overall policy and budgetary context.
I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
