Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 June 2025
120. Deputy Michael Murphy asked the Minister for Social Protection the plans to review the carer’s allowance as it applies to pensioners who unfairly only qualify for half carers due to that fact that they are already in receipt of another social welfare payment. [31583/25]
View answerCarer's Allowance is the main income support scheme for carers in the community. There are currently over 100,000 carers getting Carer’s Allowance with an estimated scheme expenditure of over €1.24 billion in 2025.Under the single payment per person rule, people who qualify for multiple payments typically receive the higher of the available options. However, as an exception to this rule, and in recognition of the important role of caring, where a person is on a full-time social welfare payment, such as State Pension and also caring for 35 hours or more per week, in addition to their primary payment, they can also receive a payment equivalent to up to half the Carer’s Allowance rate. So, there is no reduction in a person’s payment on moving on to State Pension, rather the person receives an increase with the combined payments.The basic eligibility conditions for Carer’s Allowance apply in that a person must be providing full-time care of no less than 35 hours per week and they must satisfy the means test.A number of significant improvements have been made to the means test for Carer’s Allowance in recent years. Continuing this trend, from July 2025, the weekly income disregard for Carer's Allowance will increase from €450 to €625 for a single person, and from €900 to €1,250 for carers with a spouse or partner. This will make the scheme more accessible to people who previously did not qualify.Like other carers, people in receipt of half-rate Carer’s Allowance and the State Pension received the annual Carer’s Support Grant on June 5th. This payment of €2,000 is the highest ever level of the grant.The Programme for Government includes a commitment to ‘Ensure Parents who are aged 66+ and caring for children with lifelong disabilities retain the rate at which they are paid their Carer’s Allowance and concurrently receive the State Pension’. This commitment will be advanced over the lifetime of the Government in the annual budget context and in light of available resources.I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
