Yesterday, the cross-party interest group for family carers, of which I am co-chair along with Deputy McGreehan and Senator Tully, met in the audiovisual room. We heard from family carers Angela Briggs and Matthew Murphy about the 24-7 care they provide for their loved ones. They outlined the stress some 34,000 carers went through recently and are still going through after receiving tax demand letters from Revenue. The Tánaiste knows carers save the State over €20 billion each year. Will the Tánaiste let us know what the Government is doing to remove carer's allowance and benefit payments from the tax net, similar to other payments like jobseeker's allowance? Will the Tánaiste committee to meeting the cross-party interest group to discuss this important matter?

I would be very happy to meet the group. I thank Deputy Wall, Deputy McGreehan and Senator Tully for the work they are doing. It is good to see a cross-party approach to this issue. I think in all our election manifestos we all promised a roughly similar direction of travel. I spoke to Family Carers Ireland this week. I am looking forward to meeting them and Care Alliance Ireland shortly too. It is a statement of fact that carer's benefit or allowance has always been a taxable benefit. It goes out in the letter that it is approved. It is a legitimate point of debate and policy discussion as to whether that should be the position in the future. There is also the issue of the means test. There are lots of issues we need to work our way through. I would like to get a shared sense of priority if that is possible as to how we move forward. We took a big move on the income disregard this year. That is the right thing to do. It will kick in in July. I am looking forward to engaging with the groups and I am very happy to meet the cross-party group.