Carers tax letters
Deputy Ó Murchú first paid tribute to Mickey Brady, then returned to carers who had received tax letters and called for answers and a disability payment. The Taoiseach offered condolences and repeated that no extra tax had been introduced, pointing to higher income disregards and carer payments.
I would like to remember Mickey Brady, who was a real people's MP and a former MLA, a seriously sound gentleman, a proud Newry man. He has recently been lost to all of us. I would like to pass on my condolences to his wife Caroline, and his children Saoirse, Michael, Seán, Niall and Lewis. Mickey was somebody you could always rely upon and engage with. He was really helpful to me. His work and involvement goes back to the civil rights movement and right through to the fear of the imposition of a hard Border. What I remember about Mickey as well is that he was a welfare adviser. If I could just read out a particular-----
Comment on this
It is the issue my leader, Mary Lou McDonald, brought up. It is somebody who has been sent one of these letters, who is absolutely frightened and who talks about the great work she does as a carer. We need to answer those people and to look after them, along with the need for an emergency cost-of-disability payment.
Comment on this
I appreciate the Deputy taking the opportunity to express sympathies on the death of his late colleague, Mickey Brady. I join in the sympathies to his wife Caroline and his family more generally. On the carers situation, I answered the Deputy's party leader earlier in respect of that. Nothing has changed. There is no additional taxation. Rather, the Government has significantly increased the income disregard to record levels for couples and for single people, which is quite dramatic in its impact. We have also increased the value of the carer's allowance by €10 this year but by €50-odd over the past number of years. Other measures are also committed to in the programme for Government. We will continue to work on this over the coming months.