I take this opportunity to officially congratulate the Deputy on his election. Spending on income supports for carers by the Department of Social Protection is expected to amount to over €1.9 billion this year. The carer’s allowance scheme is the main scheme by means of which my Department provides income support to carers in the community. In 2025, the expenditure on the carer’s allowance scheme is estimated to be over €1.2 billion, which will provide an allowance to more than 98,311 people. The carer's allowance …

I assure the Deputy that we will continue the work of recent Governments in terms of supporting the work of carers, which we feel is very important. We have already discussed this morning the increases in the income disregard, the weekly increase to carer's allowance and carer's benefit and the increase in the carer's support grant. Since January, the carer's allowance is now included as a qualifying payment for the fuel allowance, which is opening up that payment. The income disregard has increased from €20,000 to…

I do not think anyone here would disagree with the Deputy's assessment. I will ask my Department to do a lot of work on the supports that are available to carers. They are often so engaged in giving the care that they do not have the chance to know of the full supports that exist, many of which are not mean tested, including the carer's support grant, carer's benefit, the domiciliary care allowance and the various other supports that are available. We will be asking the Department to do a great deal of work on that…

Go raibh maith ag an Teachta agus tá sé thar a bheith tábhachtach go seasaimid le daoine faoi mhíchumas agus is rud an-tábhachtach don Rialtas nua é go mbeidh athruithe sa chuidiú sa Roinn Coimirce Sóisialaí do dhaoine atá faoi mhíchumas. My Department already provides a range of income and employment supports to people with disabilities. These include payments such as the disability allowance, the invalidity pension and blind pension. Also included in these supports are the partial capacity benefit, the wage subsi…

I thank the Deputy. This is a key priority for the Government. The Taoiseach convened a meeting on Monday to discuss support across government for people with disabilities. About seven Ministers were present at that meeting. The Department of Social Protection commissioned Indecon to research issues around the cost of disability. Indecon's report was published in 2021. It identified the additional costs of disability across a number of areas of expenditure, including housing, transport and health. It found that the…

I thank Deputies Ó Cearúil and Ó Murchú for raising this. I agree with them on housing. We will bring that to the Minister, Deputy Browne for attention. Deputy Ó Murchú raised the reasonable accommodation fund. My Department published a review of that scheme in 2023 and we have made changes. The new scheme offers seven supports to help reduce and remove barriers in the workplace for people with disability, including support for communication, job coaches, personal readers, work equipment, workplace adaptations and …

I thank the Deputy for his good wishes. I acknowledge him for his work in this area, and also that of my immediate predecessor, Heather Humphreys who was committed to the newborn baby grant of €280, which was announced in budget 2025 and was paid to families of babies born on or after 1 December 2024. Taken together with the normal first month’s child benefit of €140 parents of newborns will receive a total first payment of €420, which is three times the normal payment. The Deputy and his colleagues led strongly on…

Everything with the Department of public expenditure is hard in terms of negotiations. I agree with the Deputy that this is an important payment at what is a happy time, but which can also be a stressful time in terms of a new arrival. It can also be an expensive time. It is important that we support families and give them the best start at the very start. My Department is certainly committed to doing that. We will continue to support this and other supports available for parents at this time. Now that it is there,…

Addressing child poverty is a key priority for the Government and the Taoiseach has made it clear to me in my appointment that he wants this prioritised. As the Deputy has said, one of the commitments in the programme for Government is to explore a targeted child benefit payment and examine the interaction that would have with existing targeted supports to reduce child poverty, including the working family payment and the child support payment. My Department is beginning to progress this work under the auspices of …

I thank the Deputy and formally congratulate him on his election. I look forward to working with him. The newborn baby grant of €280 was announced in budget 2025 and is paid to families of babies born on or after 1 December 2024. This grant is paid alongside, but in addition to, the first month’s child benefit payment of €140. Parents of newborns will receive a total first payment of €420. The benefit is payable in respect of newborn babies from the month after birth. Parents of children born in one month, therefor…

The introduction of this payment is a highly popular initiative of the Department. Unfortunately, we cannot backdate payments ten years or longer in these cases. On the question of a potential payment at the other end of the spectrum, we are certainly open to any suggestions in the context of the budget, although that process will not get under way for a while. We have made changes in respect of child benefit in recent years. As I have said, these changes relate particularly to children who are in full-time educati…

Again, we will look at all issues and proposals in the context of budget 2026, which will be delivered later this year. At the moment, our priority is to get these payments out and to get work on child poverty very much under way within the Department in the context of programme for Government commitments. We are looking at targeted child benefit payments and how these would interact with existing payments. We are looking at work that has been done by the ESRI, the NESC and the Commission on Taxation and Welfare an…

I thank the Deputy. I really appreciate her raising this issue today. This is something I will be focused on. A specific nutritional standard was set for school meals. This is based on the Food Safety Authority of Ireland food-based dietary recommendations for healthy eating. These were developed by a technical working group led by the health and well-being programme of the Department of Health, Safefood and the HSE's healthy eating and active living programme. The Department of Social Protection has an oversight r…

I do not want catch-all phrases. We cannot do that any more. That day is gone. I want to see what people are eating. There are also students with different dietary needs and we are not in a good space to account for those needs if we are using catch-all phrases. This is something I will look at. I have asked for full information on the audit process and what is involved in it because, like the Deputy, I have had feedback from parents and teachers on the operation of this scheme. We have come a long way and it is im…

I disagree with very little of what the Deputy said. I will certainly look at that. This year we will introduce a pilot project based on the Department of Education's summer programme to ensure that schools that are eligible for the school meals programme will be able to make meals available for the summer programme. That will support approximately 40,000 of the most vulnerable children who have complex special educational needs, who are at risk of educational disadvantage. We will work with the Department of Educa…

I thank the Deputy. I formally congratulate him on his election and welcome him back to Leinster House. The carer's allowance is the main scheme by which my Department provides income support to the very important work done by carers in the community. The primary objective of the carer's allowance payment is to provide an income support to those carers whose earning capacity is substantially reduced. There are currently 98,311 people in receipt of carer's allowance and expenditure in 2025 is estimated to be more th…

There is a range of costs. The figure of €3 billion only arises in the context of everybody who self-declared as a carer in 2022 census qualifying. Even if only 70% of those carers were to qualify, the cost would go up to approximately €2 billion. The very important work done by carers is recognised. It has been recognised consistently by this Government and the previous one. We have made substantial changes to the supports available. In budget 2025, the carer's support grant increased to €2,000, which is the highe…

A lot of points have been raised. I ask the Deputy to come back to me on the last issue he raised. I assure all Deputies that we are very focused on the work done by carers, which is incredibly important. As I said earlier, it should be work done across the Oireachtas, not just in the committee on social protection but also the health committee. It is the Government's intention, over its lifetime, and by means of the five budgets that we hope to present, to remove the means test. It will be done in a manner that is…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach agus leis na Seanadóirí. Déanaim comhghairdeas leis an Chathaoirleach, leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach agus leis na Seanadóirí nua atá tofa. I congratulate the Cathaoirleach, the Leas-Chathaoirleach and the new Senators. Excuse me not knowing a lot of your names but I will get to know you all. I also welcome back all the returning Senators. I thank Senator Paul Daly for raising this important matter. Collectively, we saw the devastating impact Storm Éowyn had right across the cou…

I assure the Senator I will continue to engage with him and the Seanad on the response and on building resilience in not just rural communities but urban ones. Generators are not necessarily going to be the answer to everything. It is not as easy as some people make it out to be. Irish Water has already made plans to acquire 100 generators in the immediate future. We will have a range of emergency hubs that are fully equipped and that can be stood up relatively immediately in response to the next challenge. We are …