Social Welfare Benefits Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26 ============================================================ Edward Timmins (FG), Wicklow The carer's benefit scheme allows people who are working to take time off to care for family members, often children. It is not means tested and it is based on PRSI contributions. It has a requirement that people must work a minimum of 16 hours per week in the period prior to their claim. This is patently unfair to teachers who work, say, 11 hours per week and are deemed not to qualify. --- 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/2026-02-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-26