Minister for Education Richard Bruton has told the Dáil that the issuing of carer's allowance has been a problem for as long as he had been in politics.

"It concerns the complexity of the assessment methods which the Oireachtas has put in place," he added.

Mr Bruton, who was taking Opposition Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Thursday, said capital, income and medical assessments were required.

“That has been put in place, in the wisdom of the Oireachtas, as a fair way of allocating it, but it does create delays in assessment, which are inevitable with that type of approach,’’ he added.

Mr Bruton said there was also the carer’s benefit for people who were at work and decided to take a break to provide care. That could be a bridge because it was based on stamps and did not require the same detailed assessment, he added.

Additional funding

He said this week’s announcement of additional funding for the health service included an extra provision for home help hours.

The Minister was replying to Fianna Fáil TD Michael Moynihan, who said across the country families had applied for the home help service for elderly relatives to keep them in their own homes.

However, they were receiving letters stating that while the hours were approved, no funding was available to allocate extra resources.

The situation was “ludicrous”, he said.

Mr Moynihan said the HSE estimated last year that 2.2 million extra home help hours would be needed to accommodate the requirements arising from demographic changes this year.

Unfortunately, there was nothing in either the HSE’s plans or the budget to allocate funding, he added.