My Department provides a suite of income supports to people with disabilities, including disability allowance, DA, blind pension, invalidity pension and partial capacity benefit. DA is a means-tested payment for people who are substantially restricted from working because of their disability. Invalidity pension is a weekly social insurance benefit payment made to people who are regarded as being permanently incapable of work because of a long-term illness or disability. As is the case with the majority of my Department's schemes, expenditure on DA and invalidity pension is demand led. All applicants who meet the criteria of the schemes are entitled to a payment. There is no budget cap. If necessary, I bring forward Supplementary Estimates to address any situation where demand and costs exceed that set out in the annual Estimates. In the Revised Estimates for 2025, the expenditure allocation for DA is just under €2.4 billion and the allocation for invalidity pension is €817 million. The total between the two is about €3.2 billion. Looking ahead to 2026, the equivalent figures to be presented to the Oireachtas are €2.6 billion for DA and €800 million for invalidity pension, which is a total of about €3.4 billion. As part of budget 2026, I was pleased to secure an increase in funding of nearly €200 million across both schemes compared with the 2025 allocations. These increases will provide for: a €10 weekly increase to the maximum personal rate of payment on both schemes, with proportionate increases for qualified adults and those on reduced rates; the largest ever increases to the rate of the child support payment, at €8 per week in respect of children aged under 12 and €16 per week in respect of children aged 12 and over; the extension of the back-to-work family dividend scheme to people on DA and blind pension; and people moving from DA or blind pension to take up work will be able to retain their fuel allowance payment for five years.
Sentiment score: 0.07
It is important to constantly keep all of the Department's schemes under review and also review what the demand factors are. Work is under way into what a permanent cost-of-disability payment will look like, both in terms of the level of that payment and those who will qualify for it. People's experience of disability is not uniform. There is a challenge in the context of ensuring that those who need it are getting the most accurate payment and most accurate service from the Department. That is what I want to investigate over the course of the coming weeks and months in terms of our negotiations at our strategic focus forum. That will allow us to come back to the House with proposals for a permanent cost-of-disability payment. I am also very focused on increasing opportunities for employment for people with disabilities. I am looking at new models in that regard. I saw a really interesting model with the NOW Group in Belfast a number of weeks ago. The NOW Group has prioritised and pioneered the just a minute card initiative for people with disabilities to help them to access services. We have increased the opportunities for those with disabilities to access employment. They are people who bring extraordinary talent and skill to any workplace that is lucky enough to have them.
Sentiment score: 0.33
In relation to poverty, the cost-of-disability payment is going to be very focused on addressing that. As stated, there will be a need to make it as relevant as possible. I want to see us open up our imagination in the context of employment opportunities for people with disabilities and that we offer more opportunities in the digital space and in the creative space. That is why we have made some changes to the wage subsidy scheme to make it more efficient and attractive. We are constantly working to provide opportunities for people with disabilities. During the most recent work and skills week in October, we had a specific careers fair in partnership with AsIAm. That focused on people with autism and the skills and talents they can bring to any organisation. There was a really good response, and I intend to expand on that next year. In that context, Deputy Heneghan just made an interesting proposal regarding employment opportunities here in the Houses. We need to reimagine what the employment opportunities are for people with disabilities. We are too reliant on older models and I look forward to working with any organisation that can bring solutions to the table in that regard.
Sentiment score: 0.44
I thank Deputies Ardagh and Daly for this question. DCA is a non-means-tested payment of €360 per month and is payable in respect of a child aged under 16 who has a severe disability. The child must require continuous care and attention substantially over and above that required by other children their age. Applications for DCA are decided by a deciding officer on an individual case-by-case basis and based on the details provided in the application form by the applicant themselves and by the child’s GP or specialist. All new applications for DCA are referred for the opinion of a medical assessor in the Department. The medical assessor considers the severity of the child's condition, the expected duration, and the child's associated care needs, and then provides his or her medical professional opinion in relation to the child's eligibility for DCA. This is to aid the deciding officer in making a fair and accurate decision on the eligibility of the child for the scheme. The main reason, to date, for an application for DCA to be unsuccessful is that the application does not show that the child satisfies the medical criteria for the scheme. Eligibility for DCA is not based entirely on the child's disability or diagnosis, but primarily on the impact of the disability or diagnosis in terms of the associated care and attention required by the child compared to another child of the same age without their disability. Where decisions are overturned on review or appeal, this does not mean that the initial decision was incorrect. A decision can be overturned because the person requesting a review or appeal provides additional information that was not previously made available. Applicants are asked to provide as much detail as possible at application stage. My Department's officials and I are committed to providing a quality service to applicants for DCA. Earlier this year, we extended the MyWelfare service to provide for an online application process. As part of this process, the opportunity was taken to explore the design of the application form to make it easier for applicants. This involved consultation with relevant groups.
Sentiment score: 0.22
I have actually started the process of looking at all the forms in the Department. This entire office probably engages with all the forms on a daily basis. I would certainly like to get feedback from all the Deputies. We looked at the DCA form during the year. We engaged with DCA recipients and carers' advocacy groups, which improved the process. We provided additional information and online videos. I want to make the process as seamless as possible. I am very conscious of this and I keep reminding the officials in my Department that parents who are applying for DCA are going through really difficult journeys and that we have siloed them and are making their lives very difficult. We want to try to make this as easy a process as possible, bearing in mind that there need to be controls. We need to make this process as easy as possible. We have prioritised DCA appeals throughout 2025. There are currently 420 DCA appeals in hand. That figure in January 2025 was 1,700. Of the 420, 92% have been received since August 2025. I have made a very direct decision to focus on DCA appeals. It is going to kick out some other appeals but I really want to make sure that we do these forms properly and that they are not re-traumatising parents who are already in very difficult daily situations.
Sentiment score: 0.15
We made a lot of changes in recent years to DCA. In fairness to the Department, there were 29,305 people receiving DCA in respect of 31,628 children in 2015. In 2024, there were 57,319 people receiving DCA in respect of 64,676 children. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that people have that support. We want to make further changes where possible. We have also expanded the payment in relation to DCA to parents of children or babies who remain in hospital immediately after birth. We have doubled the periods for which DCA has continued to be payable for a child who has been admitted to hospital on a full-time basis. As Deputy Daly has said, the changes in income disregard for carers' allowance will also ensure that people get a lot more support. We are committed to supporting parents. The Department is committed to doing that. We will bring to the table the feedback we get from discussions like this about those forms and the application process. We are constantly ensuring that the appeals process in particular is as efficient as possible. This is why the online process has made a big change.
Sentiment score: 0.33
I thank Deputies O'Sullivan and O'Connor for the question. The programme for Government contains the commitment to abolish the means test for carers over the life of the Government. Budget 2026 increases the earnings disregard for carer's allowance by €375 to €1,000 per week for a single person and by €750 to €2,000 per week for a couple from July 2026. These are the largest ever increases in the carer's income disregards. They are evidence of my commitment and determination to deliver on the programme for Government commitment. Since 2022 the disregards will have increased cumulatively by €667.50 per week for a single person and €1,335 per week for a couple. The budget 2026 measure will benefit those current recipients who are on a means-reduced rate and who will see an increase in their payment rate, and those people making new claim applications subject to a means-reduced rate in 2026. On foot of the increases in the carer's allowance income disregards, a single person who provides full-time care but also does part-time work will next year be able to earn just over €54,000 and receive a full carer's payment. Similarly in a couple household, a person who is providing full-time care and where their partner might earn approximately €108,000 per annum will receive a full carer's payment. There are wider implications of departing from a means-tested approach and for this reason the income disregard is being abolished in a measured way over a number of budgets in line with the programme for Government commitment. Given that the scheme is demand led, and given also that it is likely that many people who are above the means threshold will have not previously applied for carer's allowance owing to this, it is difficult to estimate potential inflow from these measures. However, as with other schemes, the number of payments to be made under the scheme is not budget capped and the Department will closely monitor the inflow into the scheme to assess any change in trends. Data on take up will be published in all of our quarterly statistical releases.
Sentiment score: 0.15
The context of the commitment in the programme for Government is to do it in a progressive manner as part of the annual budget process. We are still finalising budget 2026 in terms of passing the Bill and we have not given a huge focus to 2027 yet. In terms of abolishing the means test for the carer's allowance, the Department has estimated a cost of approximately €600 million. This is based on administrative data. It is derived from the number of people on a reduced rate payment due to means, the number on a half-rate payment perhaps due to an overlap with another social welfare payment, and those who are in receipt of the non-means-tested carer's support grant. This cost, however, could stretch to a potential €3 billion per annum if everybody who self-declared as a carer in census 2022 were to qualify. This latter figure is a very high-level estimate but it gives a sense of the range. This gives a sense of the implications of departing from a means-tested approach. That is why we will be abolishing it in a measured way over a number of budgets. This year's increase of 60% gives a sense of my ambition and determination in that regard. I certainly will be pursuing further increases. To give a little bit of leeway, we must also bear in mind that we have to look after those who are on existing carer's payments to ensure they get support as well.
Sentiment score: 0.22
I will revert to the Deputy on the first point regarding multiple people in a home. With regard to pay-related carer's benefit, and as Deputy O'Sullivan knows, we introduced a pay-related jobseeker's benefit earlier this year. I am waiting to do a full 12-month evaluation of the impact of this scheme. It will give me guidance on introducing it for carers and for parental leave. Once again, I emphasise my determination to abolish the means test. The income disregards we increased this year mean that people who have never before engaged with the Department of Social Protection will have the opportunity to receive a full carer's payment. That is why it is challenging to estimate the number of people who will be involved. An income of more than €108,000 for a two-adult household is substantial and it will now get a social protection payment. The same carer with an income of €138,000 will retain a partial payment. We are determined to get rid of this means test and to ensure proper supports are given to those on the payment.
Sentiment score: 0.23
I thank Deputy O'Sullivan and I acknowledge his ongoing engagement on this issue. In 2024, the Department's deciding officers and designated persons made almost 3.4 million appealable decisions. Of these, 174,000 claims were disallowed or rejected, representing 5% of all decisions, and 40,684 appeals were registered. This represents just over 1% of the decisions overall. At current registration levels, it is projected we will again exceed 40,000 appeals by the end of 2025. This contrasts with appeal volumes of just over 20,000 in previous years. The increase in appeal volumes is believed to be attributable to two factors. These are demographic factors leading to higher demand for pensions, disability and carer's payments, and the introduction of a simple-to-use online appeals process. Recognising that neither of these two factors is likely to change, the chief appeals officer has put in place measures to deal with the increase in appeals registered. Twenty additional appeals officers were assigned in 2025. Considerable progress has since been made, with 44,307 appeals finalised by the end of October 2025. This is a 96% increase in productivity on the 22,610 appeals dealt with by the end of October 2024. As a result, pending appeals volumes have been more than halved from over 22,000 in January this year to about 11,000 currently. They are continuing to fall and I continue to monitor them on a monthly basis. Inevitably, reported processing times increase as the office clears the backlog. However, the average time to process an appeal at the end of quarter 3 of 2025 was 21.2 weeks, which is lower than the average of 23.5 weeks for 2024. Processing times are continuing to fall and once the backlog is reduced, I expect they will fall back to between ten and 12 weeks, which, given the complexity of the issues the appeals office deals with, is a reasonable timeframe.
Sentiment score: 0.09
They are 20 permanent staff for the appeals office. You do not just drop somebody into an appeals office. They need training and experience and there is a process in place within the appeals office to do that. It would have taken time for those 20 to be trained up and get stuck in but they are definitely getting stuck in. I also point out that we introduced new social welfare appeals regulations from 28 April. One of the key changes under those regulations is that the time limit to lodge an appeal has increased from 21 to 60 days. A lot more appeals are coming in as a consequence of that. There is also provision for the chief appeals officer to accept late appeals of up to 180 days in certain circumstances. The chief appeals officer continues to monitor the appeals on hand and the appeal processing times. I continue to monitor that work in terms of ensuring we get the appeals back as efficiently as possible. There is always a balance between processing appeals and dealing with them. I want to try to make sure we get to a good balance with that and there is no particular scheme that is an outlier. That is why, this year, I have focused predominantly on domiciliary care allowance appeals. We have it down to a situation that I referred to in reply to the previous question.
Sentiment score: 0.25
Every appeal is different and every scheme is different. Given the complexity of some of the schemes, getting to a ten-week turnaround time would be good for some of the schemes. I will revert to the Deputy, as I do not have the detail about supplementary welfare appeals. Appeals will also depend on the detail provided. It is not always easy to get the level of detail we need to do an appeal. At the end of quarter 3, the average processing time for all social welfare appeals was 21.2 weeks. I want to get that down. That is why we have made changes, such as assigning the 20 extra people. We have an appeals modernisation project. That was completed in quarter 1 2025, which brings in the online side of things and enhances the experience. I continue to work with the chief appeals officer, who has put in huge effort, along with the appeals office generally, to try to get these backlogs reduced. Up to the end of quarter 3, we had 29,751 appeals registered. We have reduced the processing times for those appeals. While the volume continues to grow, I want to focus on reducing the processing times as much as we can.
Sentiment score: 0.04
I thank the Deputy. I also thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for tabling the question and her engagement over recent days about the Fastway workers. All of our thoughts are with the workers affected by this receivership. It is very concerning for all of them and I assure Deputy Guirke that my Department's priority is to support all the workers who are affected and ensure they receive their statutory entitlements and appropriate income supports in a timely manner. When a company enters receivership, employees are typically placed into a statutory consultation period lasting 30 days. An employee remains in employment during the 30-day consultation period. They continue to accrue an entitlement to wages and holiday pay. That can then be claimed via the insolvency payments scheme if they are unpaid due to the employer's insolvency. There is no statutory restriction on employees taking up alternative or additional employment during the consultation or receivership period, provided they do not formally resign from their current employment. Accepting other work does not affect an employee's statutory redundancy entitlement as long as the employment contract with their original employer is still in place. Employees should not apply for jobseeker's payments during the consultation period, as they remain employees until employment terminates. Applying prematurely could affect entitlements under redundancy and insolvency payments schemes. Once the consultation period ends and the employment is formally terminated, affected employees may apply for jobseeker's payments. I assure the Deputy that, in the interim and if immediate financial support is needed, it will be made available through the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. As of yesterday, 45 supplementary welfare allowance scheme urgent needs payments had been issued to people in this situation with Fastway. Other people affected, including the self-employed and franchise and direct employees of contractors, can apply for jobseeker's immediately. As of yesterday, 56 jobseekers' claims had been awarded to people in this regard. My Department has established a dedicated team to work closely with the Fastway liquidators, workers and their representatives to provide guidance, ensure efficient processing of claims and provide opportunities to resolve any queries collectively, where possible. Our local Intreo and employment services offices are available and are assisting affected Fastway staff as we speak.
Sentiment score: 0.21
I am listening to concerns directly through the Deputy, Deputy Conway-Walsh and many other Deputies. I have met workers myself in my own constituency. That is why we have put the processes in place that have ensured 45 urgent needs payments have been made and 56 jobseeker's claims have been awarded. The offices are available to the Deputy to process any specific claims he has. I absolutely agree with him about the pressure this is putting on employees and franchise holders. I want to ensure that the supports we can make available at this time can be made available, albeit there is a redundancy process under way. I do not want to see people without an income at any time of the year, but particularly at this time of year. That is why we set up a dedicated team to deal with Fastway workers. Every Intreo office and local employment office in the areas most affected have processes in place to deal with them efficiently and quickly. If there are specific cases the Deputy wants to raise, the team in the Department is more than happy to engage with him or any other Member of the Oireachtas directly in relation to that.
Sentiment score: 0.27
I thank both Deputies. As I said in relation to the franchisees, the self-employed and the employees of contractors of Fastway, they can apply for jobseekers' payment immediately. We have processed and awarded 56 claims already in relation to that group of people. The work my Department team is doing at the moment is working with receivers, getting records of who is an employee and who is not and who is a franchisee, and getting that level of detail. That has been under way since the company entered into receivership. I thank the staff in my Department who are working on that team. They engaged with this immediately when this issue arose. That team is in place. The offices in the relevant areas are being given resources to deal with this quickly and, most importantly, as they always do, empathetically, particularly given the circumstances of this and to ensure we get decisions turned around quickly. We have done 45 urgent-need payments and 56 jobseekers' claims. That gives a sense of the focus and attention this is getting within the Department.
Sentiment score: 0.20
I thank Deputy McCormack, and Deputy Brennan for tabling this question. The implementation of My Future Fund from 1 January 2026 will fulfil a key programme for Government commitment to ensure that more than 750,000 workers are brought into a retirement savings scheme for the first time, giving those workers more security in their retirement. There has been extensive engagement with employers and representative organisations from the very outset, including during the early design phase of My Future Fund. The phasing of the roll-out, the incremental approach to levying contributions was, for example, specifically designed in response to employer feedback. Over the past 18 months we have hosted thousands of employers and related professions through many webinars, conferences and in-person stakeholder meetings, with more planned over the coming weeks. We have also implemented an extensive advertising campaign aimed specifically at employers to show them how easy it will be to implement auto-enrolment. In fact, it is as easy as enabling a health insurance or credit union deduction. Separately, over the past year, my team in the Department has worked incredibly hard and held weekly project meetings with payroll providers who provide payroll services to many employers. We have worked closely with them to ensure that deductions can be implemented in a streamlined manner. We have also made a wealth of information available through our AE hub at gov.ie/auto-enrolment and brought this to the attention of all the representative organisations. This material includes a large range of YouTube videos to explain the system and how it will work. More than 300,000 companies are registered with the Companies Registration Office. They were issued a My Future Fund mailshot in April this year. The Department will be writing to all companies and tax agents that are registered on the Revenue ROS system in early December. That mailshot will be supported by the NAERSA contact centre. It is important to note that, unlike other pension schemes, employers will have very little to do to facilitate auto-enrolment being implemented because the new State agency, the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, NAERSA, has been established to oversee and operate the system which will include taking care of all the administrative processes around auto-enrolment, contribution collection, investment and providing access to accounts and information.
Sentiment score: 0.28
I thank Deputies McCormack and Butterly for their questions. It is our intention to keep it simple. That is coming from the feedback that was under way for seven years now. We have started a strawman consultation. Employers have asked us to keep it simple and to keep the administration costs as minimal as possible. Most importantly for the approximately 750,000 people, they will have access to their money because for each person in My Future Fund, it is their money and not the State's money. They will see the top up from their employer and the State contribution and have access to that. I have no doubt there will be teething problems. There is going to be but we are trying to minimise those and get information to people inasmuch as we can. On Deputy Butterly's question, we have advised other Departments that auto-enrolment is starting. They were advised early this year to ensure that groups and funding was properly in place. Within our Department, we have provided extra money for groups such as the rural social scheme, RSS, Tús and CE to ensure that auto-enrolment is covered. However, that is an ongoing communication in place with all the Departments and one that we discussed earlier.
Sentiment score: 0.07
We have already provided debate opportunities in the House. We have provided guidance in the audiovisual room. We are providing more technical guidance for Deputies and Senators in relation to auto-enrolment so that they can provide information in their constituencies. I would direct every Deputy to gov.ie/auto-enrolment where there are videos and supports in place for all organisations to give people an idea of what is coming and the kind of work that will be involved. It is my intention that work will be minimised for employers, in particular.
Sentiment score: 0.15