Social Welfare Benefits
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-18
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Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

I reiterate to the Deputy that we will engage with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. We are looking at all of our schemes to see what is stopping people from applying. At the start of the session this morning, Deputy O'Reilly raised other points in that space. I am open to feedback in relation to that. As we go to a situation where somebody on €108,000 can still access the full carer's payment, we obviously have issues that not everybody is applying for it. I am going to drill down on those issues. We will the carer's organisations, Family Carers Ireland and the carer's allowance to increase awareness of the income disregards being increased in the manner that they are. Many people may not be aware of that income disregard, particularly carers. One point that is consistently made to me, and to all of us, is that carers often do not have the time to look at this kind of information because they are so busy, focused and engaged in their caring role.
We have to work with the organisations and family resource centres in every way to get the information about the supports available out to people. I will engage with the Minister for Health on the matter.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-18