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GE2024carers means testTHERE’S SOME BIG spending election promises being made by Fine Gael this week, such as abolishing the means tests for carers.
The party’s manifesto, which will be launched on Sunday, will have all eyes on it and its costings, for instance, where the next government will find possibly €2 billion for that specific measure.
Earlier in the week, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald accused Simon Harris of being “pretty intent on stealing Sinn Fein’s ideas”, referencing Harris’s announcement of a full review of the means testing for carers’ welfare payments.
“For somebody who talks a lot about new energy and new ideas, Simon Harris actually has no new ideas, and in the absence of ideas of his own, he seems to be pretty intent on stealing Sinn Fein’s ideas,” she said.
To this, Harris later said “Deputy McDonald can keep her policies. It wasn’t her idea, but it was the idea from carers and my party is in the business of listening and acting.”
For many years, there have been calls for the means test to be scrapped, but successive governments have rebuffed the calls, stating that it would be too expensive.
There have been criticisms of Fine Gael who have been accused putting things in their manifesto that they said were not achievable when they were in government, such as the VAT reduction for hospitality. Mere weeks ago, during budget talks, the government said such measure could not be done. Similarly, the same was said about means testing of carers.
However, Fine Gael has now moved the dial on it, but questions are being asked about why the measure is now affordable, just two short months after stating that it was not.
In Dáil debate in September on a private members motion on means testing carers, which proposed a roadmap for abolishing the test by 2027, the former junior minister in the Department of Social Protection Joe O’Brien outlined why the government was opposing such a motion.
He said some 97,406 people are currently supported by this payment, with expenditure on the carer’s allowance scheme estimated to be over €1.1 billion this year.
O’Brien went on to state the cost of the abolition, according to department officials:
“Officials in the Department have conservatively estimated that the cost of removing the means test for carer’s allowance would be an additional €600 million per annum, based on current claim numbers, that is, in other words, before adding any new inflow of claims.”
He went on state that according to census data, there are a lot more people that described themselves as ‘carers’ than the official department data of who is receiving the payment already.
If it is the case that the number of carers is significantly higher high, “it follows that the cost of abolition of the means test is also high”, he said.
O’Brien went on to state what the department’s estimation is in that case:
“The Department has costed a potential inflow of the people who self-reported as carers in the census.
Once the inflow is reckoned, the cost estimates rise to between €880 million and €2 billion a year.
Asked about the party’s spending commitments at the policy launch event in Dublin on Friday, McEntee said the Fine Gael manifesto would demonstrate the costings behind all its proposals.
McEntee was specifically asked about the promise to scrap the means test for carers, stating:
“Everything in our manifesto has been costed.”
Earlier in the week, McEntee and her party colleague, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe took aim at Fianna Fáil’s manifesto costings, stating they left a lot to be desired.
“As a party, we have been very clear, and I think over the last number of years, we have shown that while we are listening to the concerns of people, while we will do everything that we can to respond to the asks that people have of this government, whether it’s education, whether it’s childcare, whether it’s responding to justice matters, we will provide the support that is needed, while at the same time making sure that we stick within the boundaries and the fiscal rules that we’ve set ourselves,” McEntee said yesterday when quizzed on the costing of the measure.
“And I think we all know that from Paschal Donohoe (public expenditure minister) that everything that we have put out and set out in our manifesto, which we’ll be publishing on Sunday, that that is costed,” she said.
A commitment of €2 billion in any manifesto would be considered an absolutely huge deal, but it’s one that will have to be clearly outlined by the party this weekend.
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Terrifying but sadly all too predictable as temperatures rise. You’d hope this would wake a few of the deniers up as it’s more local than some of the countries people chauvinistically dismiss. But alas these people would still be posting their copy and paste, Trump n dumpster science support, while the fire or flood is on their doorstep.
@SerotoninWars: you do realize they’ve had wildfires all over the globe for centuries?
@Niall English: You do realise that they have been far worse in recent years on account of climate change?
@Niall English: You do realise that ever more parched woodlands catch fire ever more easily, which spreads ever more quickly?
@JOHN O CONNELL: You mean when there were only a few millions of people?
And vast areas of the planet were covered in forests?
Imagine that!
@JOHN O CONNELL: Those fires were caused by a collision with fragments of a comet. What is your point?
@JOHN O CONNELL: Younger Dryas
It must have all grown back, from being burnt the last few years
@P. V. Aglue: You think houses and factories grow back?
What did the Greeks ever do for us?
@Padraig O’Brien: The birthplace of western thinking.
@Padraig O’Brien: Plato, Aristotle Euclid’s geometry aid the foundations for European rationality and scientific inquiry, and influenced the development of European science and mathematics. The epics of Homer and the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles deeply influenced European literature; their Greek humanism, that emphasized individual dignity, profoundly affected the development of European and American literary traditions. The music of Ancient Greece, particularly the theoretical frameworks of harmonics developed by the likes of Pythagoras, laid the foundations of Western music theory. And the political ideas of Ancient Greece, particularly the concept of democracy as practised in Athens, have had a lasting impact on European politics and systems of government.
@David Jordan: I frequently reread an old school text book on ancient Greek history by Bury.
(Am reading it again at the moment.)
Fascinating.
@David Jordan: “The music of Ancient Greece, particularly the theoretical frameworks of harmonics developed by the likes of Pythagoras, laid the foundations of Western music theory”.
And then (c)rap came along and that all went out the window.
Here in Bulgaria the fires started in June and keep going. There is several at any given time, and once a fire is put down, another one starts in a different place. There are constant appeals for volunteers to help the fire service, who are exhausted. Turkey sent fire trucks to help, and the Chesch republic sent two planes. What seems to be missing is coordinated EU level approach to this – Southern Europe is burning, and will continue burning every summer. Did someone ask Ursula what the plan is?
@ Thesaltyurchin and David Jordan
Are ye too young to have seen Monty Python?
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