Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2025-10-15
============================================================

Louise O'Reilly (SF), Dublin Fingal West

The Taoiseach gave a commitment to phase out the means test for carer's allowance over the lifetime of the Government. It allocated €10 million for a half year in the budget - and €20 million for a full year. The Department of Social Protection tells us that it is going to cost €600 million to phase it out. At the Government's current rate, that would take 30 years. My question is a simple one. How long does the Taoiseach plan on being in government? How long is this term going to last? How long will carers have to wait to see a roadmap from the Government as to when the means test will be abolished? The Taoiseach talked a lot about it in the run-up to the last election, but now it seems to have been put even further back. I was quite shocked to see that last year the Government put €11.8 million towards the income disregard but this year it has gone down to €10 million for the half year. It is going to take 30 years at the current rate.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-10-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:13+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-10-15