The programme for Government committed to support family carers. We have also been told that a home care package will be in place by the end of the year. In that context, I ask the Minister about the Government and the Green Party position on the important issues relating to carer's allowance. Carer's allowance is means-tested. That means any household with a total gross income, before tax, USC etc., of less than €37,000 is entitled to full carer's allowance. That is a minimal amount of income. If the total gross income of a household is between €37,000 and €62,000, there is a sliding scale and a successful application for those earning €62,000 would mean approximately €10 per week in carer's allowance. Anybody earning €62,000 in gross income pays at least €20,000 in tax and USC. That shows how low the income disregards are. A person with a second property or savings of more than €20,000 starts to lose the carer's allowance. The Government has stated that will increase to €50,000 by June, which is positive and I am not minimising that change. However, it is still not enough. It is estimated that 25% of carers get carer's allowance. I know they are not all giving care full time but the Government needs to review those income disregards and get rid of the means test, which I have heard described as a "mean test" over many years.

It is also important to remember that to get carer's allowance, the person cared for must be medically assessed to be in need of full-time care. Crucially, carer's allowance is taxable, which means those who benefit most get the most income from carer's allowance.

However, this issue is not just about money. The Citizens' Assembly has said that care must be recognised in the Constitution and that Article 41 should be replaced by an article on care. That would mean the State would be obliged to support carers. The assembly also suggested the Government should increase the disregards on carer's allowance.

We are all aware of the cost of caring. Just a week or two ago, I was happy to launch, with Family Carers Ireland and the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice, another report on the cost of caring. The main costs are around energy and transport. In that context, will the Minister commit to working to ensure carer's allowance is a qualifying payment for the fuel allowance?

I agree with the points the Deputy has made. It is important we recognise it when we increase payments because otherwise the political support for further increases will not be there. As the Deputy said, as part of the most recent budget, the capital disregard for carers increased from €20,000 to €50,000. That was not insignificant. The improvements in the income disregard went from €332.50 per year to €350. That is not as much of an improvement as we might want but it is still a significant increase.

I will record what has been done with regard to the carer's support grant in the past year because it is important to record things with which we might want to go further so they are not just ignored and forgotten about. The grant was increased to €1,850. The qualified child allowance also increased and there was an underlying increase of €5. There are a number of ways in which this Government has recognised that what the Deputy has said is true. We need to support caring and the whole variety of roles that carers play. This is not just about the economy and getting everyone working. There is critical value in caring work we need to recognise and support.

I agree about the potential involved. If I heard the Deputy correctly, what might be called the woman's place in the home referendum will give us an opportunity to redefine the Constitution not only to remove some of its sexist aspects but also to retain what was intended by the original wording, as I understand it, and value caring work. I agree with the Deputy. That is an opportunity the Oireachtas needs to grasp to ensure we get the right wording so that we do, in our Constitution, support caring work in the home and elsewhere.

The Deputy referred to the energy and food price crisis. There will be increases in the cost of food and other materials as a result of the war in Ukraine. We have introduced a range of measures. We are going to have to think about what we do in next year's budget. It will take time and we need to talk to our social partners and others, and think about how to address this cost-of-living crisis. My sense is that we should be targeted in what we do because those on the lowest incomes or facing certain circumstances may be caught out most.

I had a meeting yesterday with the team in my Department that is looking at the issues of energy security and our response to the crisis. Mr. Alan Barrett from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, is helping to co-ordinate work we are doing with the modelling from the ESRI, University College Cork and University College Dublin to try, in the period as we approach the budget, to target areas where there is the most need in the context of the cost-of-living increase. That might provide the opportunity for what I sense the Deputy is looking for, that is, detailed modelling to target those most at risk, which may be those in the role of carer. That modelling work may help us to target them and design a solution to protect them most in any response.

I thank the Minister. I have heard what he has said about targeting. Whether the Government gets rid of the means test or increases further the income disregards, we will see the outcome when the modelling is done. The Government needs to take one of those measures because that is what the Citizens' Assembly has asked it to do. The Citizens' Assembly also made another important point. Gross income is taken into consideration. This means family carers, male or female, are relying on their partner's income to support them and to support care in the home. The assembly also asked for social welfare payments to be individualised. That is an important point. Men and women who are carers find themselves at a significant disadvantage because of the way this legislation is put in place.

The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act will come into being in June this year. That means family members will have a formal role to play. It is an extra commitment and an extra administrative burden on all family carers. The Government also needs to take that into consideration.

We will take that into consideration. I understand the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, last year published a cost of disability report that might help to back up some of the Deputy's argument. I believe the Deputy is looking at a wider and important budget issue. Over the years, Social Justice Ireland has made a case similar to that the Deputy is making, that is, we could look at the use of refundable tax credits or other mechanisms to recognise we individualised the tax system but did not the social welfare system. That is a broad issue that goes back some 20 years. There is a real case for such a further evolution, because if we do everything on the assumption that it is all about people in work and leave behind and do not recognise the work of people who are outside the paid workforce, that would be a real injustice. This is not a small change and is not easy to make. It might have to be done on a step-by-step process.

I agree with the broad premise. It is about valuing, perhaps in a universal way, everyone's contribution and giving people freedom and flexibility to make their choice as to what is best for their life, be that caring or other roles.