Social Welfare Benefits Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26 ============================================================ Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo I am happy to engage with the Deputy around the specific instances. Subsequently, we can examine those in more detail. As I said, we have made substantial increases to the means assessment and that will continue from 1 July this year. We have also increased the carer's benefit rate by €51 over the past five years. Previously, this was done by the then Minister, Heather Humphreys, and I have continued that. The changes in the income limits from €625, which started from July, will continue to increase in 2026. On the specific issue of teachers' hours and what is regarded as a full working week, I am happy to engage in that to see if that can be resolved. I look forward to hearing more details in the Deputy's next supplementary. --- 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