I thank the Deputy for his question. I take it that it concerns people in receipt of the one-parent family allowance, domiciliary care allowance and the half-rate carer's allowance in respect of a child who is turning 16 this year. Of the approximately 10,200 people currently in receipt of both the one-parent family payment and half-rate carer's allowance, approximately 390 will cease being in this position during 20…
TDs / Dara Calleary
Dara Calleary
Minister for Rural and Community Development and the GaeltachtMinister for Social Protection
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
0
questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
234,885
words spoken in the chamber
234,882 as a minister, 3 as a TD
406
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
Members of the Government answer parliamentary questions rather than ask them, so this page lists none of theirs.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Contributions to debates 896 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
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| Month | Contributions |
|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 42 |
| March 2025 | 66 |
| April 2025 | 12 |
| May 2025 | 140 |
| June 2025 | 43 |
| July 2025 | 32 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 46 |
| October 2025 | 40 |
| November 2025 | 42 |
| December 2025 | 42 |
| January 2026 | 43 |
| February 2026 | 74 |
| March 2026 | 31 |
| April 2026 | 45 |
| May 2026 | 46 |
| June 2026 | 40 |
| July 2026 | 37 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 45 |
| October 2026 | 30 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 735 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Mayo 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister for Rural and Community Development 23 January 2025 to 1 June 2025
- office Minister for Social Protection 23 January 2025 to 1 June 2025
- office Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht 2 June 2025 to now
- office Minister for Social Protection 2 June 2025 to now
I have already met with a number of groups in this space pointing out many anomalies in the system we need to address to assist lone parents. As the Deputy said, it is a very challenging role. I have engaged with the groups and unfortunately it seems there are systems that are not helping them. I am determined to address those anomalies to make sure that there is support in place for lone parents who do such an impor…
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as an gceist a chur. Táimid ag iarraidh obair i dteannta cúramóirí chun iad a sheoladh. Tá brón orm nach bhfuil freagra agam as Gaeilge.
In future, I will make sure we have the answers as Gaeilge for the Deputy.
We are very aware of the key role that family carers play. The main income supports to carers provided by my Department are carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the carer’s support grant, which will account for over €1.9 billion of my Department's budget in 2025. The carer’s allowance is the main scheme by which …
I assure the Deputy that we absolutely value the work of carers. That has been shown by the work done on the income disregards, which will take effect this July, in recent years and the introduction of the long-term carer's contribution scheme in January 2024. Under that scheme, a person who has been a full-time carer for an incapacitated dependent for at least 20 years, or 1,040 weeks, can get long-term carer's cont…
The report on----
On carers?
I will clarify it for the Deputy after the debate. We are looking at everything. I will not accept the contention that we do not value carers. We absolutely do value them. We have shown through a number of initiatives in recent years that we do so. There have been initiatives in successive budgets and contributions around income disregards and the carer's support payment. We have introduced insurable credits. That sh…
I will come back to the Deputy on that.
The Deputy raises a very important point. My Department's focus is on improving the income supports that are being made available to carers and improving the support that we as a Department can give to them. In terms of our aging population, we have to work with our colleagues in the Department of Health to ensure that we align all of our plans in this space. That is something I am more than happy to work on with the…
I thank Deputy McCormack. Our national employment strategy, Pathways to Work, sets out the Government’s approach to supporting jobseekers to prepare for, access and take up employment opportunities. In line with this strategy, my Department’s Intreo employment services throughout the country engage with jobseekers to support them to find work. The Government has provided in excess of €657 million for employment suppo…
Absolutely. We had a discussion on a previous question, asked by Deputy James O'Connor, about the introduction of the commitment in the programme for Government to introducing a working age payment. That is important to ensure that people who transition from a welfare support payment to work are not worse off. I will be focused on that. As I said, we will publish a number of potential models and look for feedback ove…
Absolutely. As I said to Deputy O'Connor earlier, we want to ensure that the social protection system is work-friendly and the welfare traps which inhibit people from taking up work are removed. I highlighted earlier that if a person on jobseeker's payment receives an offer of part-time work, he or she can end up worse off financially if his or her hours are spread over the whole working week rather than concentrated…
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as an cheist. The Indecon report on the cost of disability, commissioned and funded by my Department, found that the extra costs of disability are due to a number of factors, including higher costs of healthcare, transport, education, housing and other services that arise because of a higher level of dependence on these services by people with disabilities. In that context, the report…
I thank the Deputy. Since the Government was elected, we have prioritised the Cabinet committee on disability, which is chaired by the Taoiseach and meets monthly. It is addressing a range of issues, including income, but also services and supports. We had a discussion with Deputy John Connolly earlier about the wage subsidy scheme to assist employers and encourage them to employ people with a disability. We will be …
I thank the Deputy for his question. As he knows and referred to, the programme for Government has committed to protect core welfare rates while ensuring that available resources are targeted at vulnerable groups. The programme for Government includes a commitment to examine key ancillary benefits such as the fuel allowance, household benefits package and living alone allowance to support vulnerable groups. This is a…
I endorse the Deputy's comments, particularly regarding rural poverty. I will keep a laser-like focus on it during my time in the Department. I commend the work done by organisations such as Local Link, which is expanding its footprint to address the exact kind of loneliness the Deputy has just referred to.
The living alone allowance, or the living alone increase as it is formerly known, is available to those who ar…
I agree with Deputy Burke and we will try to do that. Not just during Covid, but during Storm Éowyn we saw the real value of local groups, hubs and services. With my other hat of rural and community development, I am working within the Department on supporting those local hubs and services.
The timing of hospital appointments frustrates me. Even if a person was able to use public transport, the timing of a hospital …
We have had this discussion a few times today and the Government acknowledges the important role that carers are playing and we will continue to support them in that role. The enhanced State pension provision for people who have been caring for an incapacitated dependant for 20 years or more was introduced on 1 January 2024. If a person had more than 20 years of caring for an incapacitated person, long-term carers co…
I agree with the Deputy. In our preparation for responding to his question, I have asked that we do more work in terms of reaching out to people who may qualify but who may not know. Those figures strike me as low. The Department has been doing a lot of work in this space in terms of trying to bring the scheme to people's attention. Maybe with the support of colleagues across the House, we can do that by way of newsl…
I thank Deputy Cahill for his question. As he said, the rural social scheme plays an important role in the life of rural communities. I wish to highlight and thank every participant, supervisor and sponsoring company for their work in this space. The RSS provides an income support and part-time employment opportunities for farmers and fishers who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments and who may be undere…
I thank Deputies Cahill and Conway-Walsh for their remarks. Regarding the review, we have fully implemented five recommendations. Actually, I had a meeting yesterday with officials on the remaining ones, including extending eligibility to people not directly engaged in farming or fishing but who have a connection to a rural community and the issue of two people accessing it. I have asked them to come back to me on th…
As I said in reply to Deputy O'Reilly, the hot school meals review was announced when we expanded programme just ahead of the Easter school holidays. With regard to nutrition, the specific standard was set under the nutritional standards for school meals and nutritional standards for hot school meals. A technical nutrition subgroup comprised of dietitians from the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute of Ireland, th…
I agree with the Deputy entirely. We want this scheme to work. We will do the final roll-out in September so that every primary school pupil in the country will have had the opportunity to have hot school meals within their school. At that time I intend to stand back and examine at the scheme to see where it has been working and where it has not. I will be very focused on DEIS secondary schools during the lifetime of…
I totally agree with the Deputy that a five-year-old should not receive the same portion as a 13-year-old and we get that feedback a lot. I suspect there are Members who have seen food come home with schoolbags and probably found it a few days later.
Every school has the flexibility, within procurement rules, to choose the provider of the food. There is not some massive corporate monolith. There are a lot of locally…